


a thicket of shadows is a poor coat

by morallygreywaren



Series: women, warriors, witches [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (but this can largely be read as a, (i've taken some small liberties), (not permanent for our main baes), (or canon compliant in a way that matters by way of tagging), Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Light Bondage, M/M, Medieval England, Minor Character Death, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prequel, basically porn as a coping mechanism if you're immortal and protective, bottom!Joe, but that's not really what any of this is about, i'm just tagging for those who need to know what kind of 'explicit' they're getting into, my beta said 'embrace the whump' so here we are, to the film)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25404487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallygreywaren/pseuds/morallygreywaren
Summary: Joe tugs Nicky into a standing position and then away from the bay window as Andy groans, and Nicky pats Quynh’s head when she pokes her tongue at them. They’re all laughing, though, the easy magic of friendship easing the sharp edges of the work to come and bets lost, and Nicky thinks that maybe this is the real forever he should focus on: Secrets, and laughter, and the four of them against the world, this evening, and the day after, and how ever many they would be granted. Together.Andy, Quynh, Nicky and Joe are infiltrating the court of a medieval English lord to save local women from the witch hunt. But in trying times not everything goes to plan. This is a story about friendship, and love, and regret.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Quynh | Noriko/Andy | Andromache the Scythian
Series: women, warriors, witches [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928086
Comments: 84
Kudos: 261





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sylvia Plath's ['Witch Burning'](https://allpoetry.com/Witch-Burning)
> 
> While it pains me to let go of my beloved "#unbetad #we die like men" hashtags, I have to say a thousand thanks to [@Avanie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanie/pseuds/Avanie) for lending me her eagle eyes and unbarred support, cheering at the good bits and fixing the bad ones.  
> All historical inaccuracies and other mistakes left are mine, although only some will be intentional for ease of reading.

“Somebody get me _out_ of this.”

The layers of Andy’s dress spill over onto Nicky’s lap as she tries and fails to arrange them in folds on top of her. They are sitting in a horse-drawn carriage on the way to a coastal town in East Anglia, the sky above them grey despite the season and the hills rolling with green outside the window.

“I’d love to.” Quynh is sitting across from Andy and Nicky, next to Joe, but the carriage is small enough that most of their feet are also covered by the endless folds of Andy's dress. “But only if I get to take mine off as well.”

Nicky meets Joe’s gaze for a moment, knowing, before he glances away and looks out of the window again. 

They are planning to infiltrate the local court after they got word that a witch finder has been called to town. It’s the kind of job Nicky likes best, even though the word implies that they should be paid for it (which they aren’t). Over the past couple of decades, and in most of the time that he and Joe have been travelling with Andy and Quynh, they have mainly made their coin with mercenary work, unusually skilled as they are at defending people and other targets until death and beyond.

But Nicky knows this is not their purpose, can’t be the reason the four of them have been put on this Earth. As long as they breathe and breathe again, they will always exist to help and protect those who would not be able to afford their services. A whole life is steep to some. But it’s easier to pay with your life if you have more than one to spare.

“It’s just so damn impractical.” Andy blows a strand of hair that has escaped her wimple out of her face and throws her head back. “What’s the point of putting a belt on this if it doesn’t even carry weapons?” As if she wasn’t wearing at least three daggers on her person at this moment.

“I’m afraid the average English noble woman doesn’t get too much use out of a battle axe,” Joe says.

“Yes, and it fucking shows.”

She’s joking of course, as is Joe. The outside of his foot presses against Nicky’s and he smiles, joining him and Quynh in surveying the English countryside. There’s nothing to see, really, but there is lots to think of in the last couple of moments before they arrive.

A talented artist, it had turned out that Joe was also an excellent forger, and had managed to leave a trail of invitations with the court of Lord Fendrel, who was now expecting to host a small banquet for his esteemed guests, the Signore Nicolo Bacci and his wife, Adriana.

“This is it,” Quynh says as the carriage pulls into the town, the bustle of the streets milling with locals and merchants a stark difference to the quiet countryside. Nicky closes his eyes. He has no preference over one or the other, really, in so far as neither are ever going to be his favourite. But if he breathes in, he can almost smell the sea and that will have to for now.

When he opens his eyes again, the carriage is rolling to a halt in front of Lord Fendrel’s court. Joe winks at him, then gets up to open the door and jump out of the carriage. Quynh follows suit and it is only Nicky and Andy left in there, waiting for their cue. It sounds like Lord Fendrel is playing a fanfare of some kind out there.

“Ready?” Andy squeezes Nicky’s hand.

He nods, but there isn’t really an option here. From the moment they entered the carriage, chartered from an acquaintance in the next county over, the job was underway. The point of no return is past. Possibly by centuries.

He stands as tall as he can and lets Joe help him out of the carriage, sure steps, one in front of the other. Joe’s eyes are on his face, his hands warm and calming where they meet his palm and elbow, but Nicky doesn’t allow himself to look at him now. Too much to be given away, and Joe is so much worse at this than he is.

“Ah, Signore Bacci! What an honour!” Lord Fendrel has been waiting for him, select members of his court standing on the steps leading up to the entrance door.

“And for me,” Nicky says, clasping the man’s elbow with his hand as is in fashion at the time. “May I introduce my wife, Adriana?”

He turns back to the carriage to give Andy a helping hand, while Quynh busies herself in getting the many folds of her dress out of her way. Andy smiles, and Nicky only half-suppresses a grin at how awful it looks. He’s seen knives that are kinder, but that is Andromache the Scythian for you: You can put her in a ridiculous frock, you can extend a helping hand she doesn’t need, but you needn’t fool yourself a second that she is not more deadly than you.

“I trust your travels went well?” Lord Fendrel enquires as he leads Andy and Nicky up the stairs and into the hall.

“Well, yes,” Nicky says, nods.

“We had good travels. Most pleasant,” Andy adds.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nicky can see that Quynh and Joe are following at a respectable distance, carrying the bags they had stashed away on the carriage. It doesn’t escape him that Joe is working hard not to smile.

This is, perhaps, the only thing that tars this job in Nicky’s mind: Infiltrating a court to gain access to the witch finder and learn of his whereabouts had sounded fine until they had begun to discuss the practicalities of it, and everyone had agreed that _he_ should be the Italian lord and main guest.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he’d said when they discussed it.

“Well, it’s the best we have,” Andy had said. “You’ll be Signore Bacci, I’m your wife, and we take Quynh and Joe as our personal servants. Look, I don’t like it either, but it’s the easiest option that’ll get us asked the least amount of questions.”

Quynh had looked about as happy about that as he felt.

The upside: He didn’t need to speak any language accent free.

The downside: He had to _speak_.

“Think about it, Nicky,” Joe’d whispered later when they’d gone to bed. “You already look and sound the part. You think they’re going to look at me and think I’m European nobility?”

And so he’d grumbled and relented, but as Lord Fendrel shows them around his court, he still thinks it is a misgiving to have the most charismatic member of their team reduced to a meek manservant. Nevermind the risk that Quynh will just skewer the next member of court who casts even just half an interested glance in her direction. Or Andy on her behalf.

But they survive the tour without any need for gregarious remarks from Nicky or undue slaughtering from Quynh and are shown to their quarters on the eastern side of the court to prepare themselves for dinner.

Within a second of the door closing, Quynh drops their bags – they’re largely empty, just brought for show – and throws herself onto the four poster bed in the middle of the room. There’s a canopy cloth slung around it, ending in curtains to each side of the posters, to grant the sleepers some reprieve from prying eyes of the night.

Joe comes to stand beside him. Privacy. It’s been a while since they’ve all known what that felt like.

Quynh groans happily. “You’re missing out.”

And that they don’t need to hear twice, moving from where they’d been hovering near the door and joining her on the bed in a pile of limbs. It is the greatest comfort they are afforded anywhere: To sleep in a real bed, with pillows and a duvet made of downy feathers, instead of a bedroll with some straw at best.

Nicky can feel the tension drain out of this body, tension he must’ve built while talking to Lord Fendrel. Strange to think that he can kill a man without thinking twice these days, adrenaline hitting late if at all, but that deception still has that effect on him. _Thou shalt not lie_ , he thinks, and smiles as Joe’s hand comes up behind him to wind its way around his waist. _In more ways than one._

Andy is lying on her back and has loosened the belt on her dress, her eyes closed. Quynh, now propped up on one arm instead of starfishing on top of the sheets, is pulling the robes of her dress up and over her head. In polite society, the whole scene would no doubt be deemed indecent, but Joe and Nicky are used to seeing either woman in less clothing and after nearly four hundred years fighting together, it is hard to imagine that they could care.

When she’s down to the simplest layer of dress, Andy sighs happily and stretches.

“We should decide who gets to have the bed tonight.” Quynh’s smile is sharp, her teeth glistening like canines. 

“It’s not your turn,” Joe says, pulling Nicky closer into him as he looks over his shoulder, “You had the bed last time.”

“And we’re unlikely to forget that anytime soon,” Nicky adds darkly, but without a real grudge. At the time, he was pressed against Joe in a similar way to now, huddled together on a bedroll in the antechamber of a stately room at an inn. It had been Andy and Joe who’d pretended to have been married that time, and they’d returned to the room in the middle of a night after a mission well done.

He was nearly asleep when the soft sighs from the room had reached him, and with his fight or flight response trained as it was, he’d half sat up before Joe’s hand on his chest had stilled him. “I don’t think they need our help in there right now,” Joe had whispered, and Nicky slowly put it together. Going to sleep after _that_ was impossible, though, and the night had turned decidedly more interesting in their antechamber as well. But that is not the point. 

Quynh doesn’t even try to look innocent. “If we’re staying two nights we can switch?”

“Or,” Andy suggests, “I could direct everyone’s thoughts back to the mission at hand and we focus on that instead?”

“Sure, boss.” Joe stops glaring gentle daggers at Quynh and pulls himself up into a sitting position against the headboard, allowing Nicky to use his thigh as a pillow. Andy and Quynh do the same in sitting against the pillars at the other end of the bed, their legs casually tangled.

Nicky often thinks their arrival must’ve made life both easier and more complicated for Andy and Quynh. Much like Joe and him, they don’t mind being alone with each other, didn’t for centuries, but in this day and age, it is infinitely, infinitely easier for them to travel as two couples. Even if the world doesn’t quite see it the way they do.

“We’ve been dealing with these fuckers for a while now, so this is not the biggest recon mission we’ve ever had to do, but there are still two things that are vitally important,” Andy says. “One, don’t blow our cover. And two, find out as many details about this witch finder before he arrives, and the victims he’s likely to target. Depending on how much time we’ll have before he arrives we make a plan of action when we get back into the room later. If anything goes wrong, hide and try to join us again as soon as you can. That all good with everyone?”

It’s the kind of thing she doesn’t really need to say, doesn’t really need to ask, but it gives their group structure, the comfort of a leader. Nicky knows it’s written on their faces, they would all follow this woman anywhere, and she would protect them wherever they went.

“I have an idea how we can decide who gets the bed,” Quynh says. “Why not make a competition out of who can find out the most?”

The way she smiles shows that she knows why she’s second in command.

“Alright,” Joe agrees and Nicky nods.

“Glad that’s settled.” Andy lets her head fall back against the bed’s pillar. “How long do we have until dinner?”

“Just about enough to tie you back into one of those dresses.”

Andy groans.


	2. Chapter 2

To Nicky’s dismay, it’s not just Andy who is forced into a ridiculous outfit over dinner. There is a thing with corners and strings attached to her dress on her head, but before he can swallow a grin, she holds up the most ridiculous hat he has ever seen in his life. And he has visited the Italian courts. So now he is standing in front of a mirror, eyeing himself with distrust and questioning two things: One, some of his life choices, and two, if Andy really loves him as much as she says she does.

He knows it’s time when he spots Joe coming up behind him and turns around.

“How do I look?”

“Do you want an honest answer?” Joe peers into his eyes, striking the familiar balance between mirth and overbearing sincerity. “Astoundingly beautiful, as you always do.”

Nicky can’t stand him sometimes. He leans in and kisses him, slow and sweet, but short. They have places to be, banquets to go to.

Lord Fendrel’s dining hall takes up almost the entire ground floor of his court, and today its walls are decorated with wild roses, twigs and garlands in earthy tones of green, brown and white. The banquet tables, arranged in the shape of a wide U to leave space for performers in the middle, is already heaving with food when Nicky and Andy step into the hall together. He is glad for her arm in his as a servant shows them to their seats, and feels its loss when she is placed two seats away from him, next to Lord Fendrel’s wife.

“I trust you found the quarters to your liking, Signore Bacci?”

“They’re most formidable, my Lord.”

Nicky mirrors Lord Fendrel’s open-mouthed smile as the man gestures for a servant to pour him some wine. As a guest, Nicky has the option to be served by one of Lord Fendrel’s servants, but it is Joe who steps up to the table with a jug of wine. And a smile that remains just on the decent side of smug, which garners Nicky a raised eyebrow from Lord Fendrel.

“I hope you don’t mind, my lord, my wife and I prefer our own servants.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Lord Fendrel says, and allows Joe to pour him a cup of wine as well. “We’ve heard marvellous things about the Italian courts and I hope you don’t mind me saying that we were surprised when you agreed to grace us with your presence.”

“It is our great pleasure,” Andy says, inclining her head as Quynh arranges some fruit on her plate. She grimaces when she catches Nicky’s eye, then saunters off to loiter closer to the wall with some of the other servants.

“You simply must tell me more about the customs at Italian courts,” Lord Fendrel’s wife says to Andy, “I am so eager to learn. Tell me, are all your servants coloured?”

Nicky very nearly spits his wine back into the cup.

“I’ve heard they are quite popular to come by these days,” the man to Nicky’s left adds, and introduces himself as Valric. He has a grin that consists largely of canines, and Nicky feels like he’s about to dine with wolves.

“Oh yes, I have too,” Lord Fendrel adds. “Cheaper labour. That is, if you pay them at all?”

“We pay all our servants,” Nicky says. Calm, looking at the ceiling. “God did not want us to be greedy.”

“Of course, you are a pious man, I should not have forgotten.” Lord Fendrel inclines his head in what seems to constitute an apology, but Valric does not appear to be ready to let the topic go.

“A pity,” he says, but turns, looking over Nicky’s shoulder at where Quynh and some of the other servant girls are standing. “But if they all look like that, I would probably pay as well.” He makes a gesture that Nicky would rather forget immediately, and laughs when Nicky turns to look back at Quynh, to check she is okay, half-prays that she didn’t have to see it. Not that that would make it any better, but because their hands are tied to do anything about it at the moment. It would be easy to slide his fork into Valric’s thigh for this remark, he could probably castrate him without having to get up. _Later_ , he wants to say, but isn’t sure it comes across. There is no warmth left in Quynh’s eyes, no brown, only darkness.

Lord Fendrel claps twice to get everyone’s attention. “Let us eat!”

Nicky turns to servants stepping up to the table to place food on their masters’ and ladies’ plates, and a bard begins to play a tune for a them. He hopes that this is the end of this line of conversation and accepts the tiny morsels of food Joe picks for him, smiles when he begins to cut his meats into bite sizes.

“ _Is there anything else I can do for you, Signore?_ ” Joe asks in Italian. His hand rest lightly on the back of Nicky’s chair, the tips of his fingers pressing invisible caresses onto his spine. It’s comforting, but it’s dangerous, and Nicky needs to find a way to bring up the witch finder with Lord Fendrel.

“ _That’s all, thank you,_ ” he says in Italian

“ _Alright._ ” There is a twinkle in Joe’s eye, and Nicky will never tire of hearing him speak this language. “ _I’ll see if I can pick up any information in the kitchen. See you later._ ”

Nicky resists the urge to look after him as he leaves, not least due to Valric’s raised eyebrow. When the bard begins to strum a quieter song, Andy reaches for her wine and leans conspiratorially towards Lord Fendrel’s wife.

“We have heard rumours as well,” she says, “Is it true that your area is, how do you say, haunted? That there is a problem with witches?”

A look of ill-contained horror passes over Lord Fendrel’s wife’s face, but she nods, dabbing at her mouth. “It’s been most dreadful. So many spoilt crops already, and the season is only half over. And there’s a travelling sickness that these _ghastly_ women spread wherever they go. Makes you not want to leave the house, which is just terrible in a town like ours, dependent as we are on trade. Imagine one of them jumping you in the street, or worse, cursing you behind closed doors?” Andy has been chugging wine steadily as Lord Fendrel’s wife keeps talking, but Nicky doesn’t miss the disgust in her eyes as they cross his over her cup. “Luckily Robert has a plan to come down on them.”

“What’s that, dear?” Lord Fendrel pops a grape into his mouth, a bit of the flesh and juice coming to stick to his beard. “Oh, the witching problem! Awful business. Have you had any yourself?”

“Not generally, no,” Nicky mumbles. He watches the grape juice matt into Lord Fendrel’s beard. The colour should be lighter than this, but he could be imagining things. “Not to my knowledge at least.”

“You’ve got to be fiendishly careful with these things,” Lord Fendrel says. “We wouldn’t have known at all if we hadn’t had some of the merchants pointing the signs out to us, so now naturally we’ve called for a witchfinder to deal with the mess. Say, are you still going to be with us in two days’ time?”

Nicky inclines his head to assent. “If you’ll have us.”

“Hoho, of course we will! Too good an opportunity to pass up on, we can show you that the English know how to have a good time as well. Valric, tell Signore Bacci about the witchfinder you found. We’re going to have a _feast_ when he gets here. _And_ when the witches burn!”

He guffaws, has more grapes and Nicky puts his spoon down. He’s eaten enough not to be rude, but he won’t manage another bite without being sick.

“Ah, yes, the Witchfinder General Reeves should get here the day after tomorrow,” Valric says, leaning towards Nicky like they are friends now. “His methods are said to be controversial but proven to work. In the last village he went to, he tested every single woman for traces of witchcraft, even the ones who had not been accused. And do you want to know how he did it?” Valric leans back, gestures for more wine. Nicky doesn’t want to hear it, but he needs to know what they’re up against. “First, he searched them for witch’s marks. Had them all stripped and publicly examined for the Devil’s Mark. It’s like an extra nipple that can change shape and colour. Sounds pretty disgusting, I know, but makes you wonder what you get to see in the process.” He is leering again, and Nicky contemplates his dismemberment as Valric drains his cup of wine. He doesn’t take pleasure in killing, it started out as a means of survival and now he likes to think he only does it if it’s the right thing. But he can imagine Andy almost having fun with this one.

“And then of course, failing that, they prick them,” Val continues, “you can’t have a good witch hunt without some pricking. The Devil’s Mark is numb on their bodies, you see, so if you prick it-“ he mimes a motion that’s more of a stab, “and it doesn’t bleed, then, well, you’ve got yourself a witch. Cue the burning.”

Nicky knows he should say something. Valric is leaning back in his chair and will only continue to look as self-satisfied as he does for a moment longer before he’ll expect a response from Nicky, and if it is a noise of intrigue. But it is one thing to know the practices of hell humanity continues to unleash on each other, not stopping once in the nearly 500 years he’s been alive, and another to hear someone speak of them so casually, mock its victims so cruelly by indifference.

He’s surprised more than anything when Valric’s face falls all of a sudden and a strangled gasp escapes his throat.

“Are you okay?” Nicky asks, backing away as Valric’s hands close up around his collar, pulling it away as if he was being strangled.

“Can’t… breathe…,” he presses out between gulps of air. His face is slowly turning blue.

“Valric?” Lord Fendrel is out of his chair, and Nicky scrambles to get away from what is turning into a scene.

“Someone get the court physician!”

“What did he eat? What did he drink?

“A physician won’t help you if it was witchcraft!”

The bard has stopped playing and a throng of people are crowding around Valric, who is now lying on the floor. Nicky counts his own heartbeats. Twenty more and he will be dead.

Andy comes to stand next to him, not a moment before Lord Fendrel hurries over.

“Signore, Signora, I am so sorry that you had to witness this. Let me escort you back to your quarters, this is not a sight for ladies’ eyes.”

Andy pointedly looks away, leaving Nicky to nod before Lord Fendrel cuts a brisk pace through the court, leading them back to their room.

“Let me apologise again,” he says, before he bids them good night. “But before we part, can I ask- Did you see anything out of the ordinary? Did he drink something he shouldn’t have.”

Nicky shakes his head. He can’t bring himself to look and feel sorry for the man now, but he doesn’t need to feign his numb shock. “Only the wine,” he says.

Lord Fendrel nods. “Just as well the witchfinder is coming.”

Then he excuses himself and Nicky and Andy step back into their room. They are the first ones there, and the room is quiet in the way things usually are when they’re waiting to be disturbed, or dead.

Andy walks to the window to press her head against the glass. “Quynh,” she sighs, and Nicky understands.

He sits on a chest in the other corner of the room, where two rudimentary beds have been propped up for Joe and Quynh. It’s a little secluded, tucked behind a half wall and it has a bay window when he can put down his ridiculous hat, start unlacing his boots. The waves are almost visible from here, even though the sun has gone down now, and the shore looks rougher than during the day.

Quynh is the next back, and Nicky traces her almost silent footsteps until they come to a halt next to Andy. He sees her hook her chin over Andy’s shoulder, but as he expected, Andy’s posture doesn’t melt this time.

If he gives them privacy now it can become a lovers’ squabble, not a public chewing out in front of them.

“Did you _have_ to poison him?” Andy asks without turning, sounding strangely flat.

Nicky doesn’t know what she prefers in situations like this. They all make mistakes, they all die and come back again, but Andy has been the only one who has been both friend and protector, lover and leader.

“You saw what he was like,” Quynh says, just as Joe sneaks into the room. “Did you want him to stick around so he could give them more ideas for amusing cruelties?”

“You created a liability that could have exposed us, and you know better.”

Nicky beckons Joe over with a twist of his head and they sit in the bay window in silence while Andy and Quynh talk the issue out. Joe holds his hand and that is all.

They both know that Andy and Quynh are going to join them in a few moments and the whole world will be right again, they’ll all have survived the evening and they’ll now some things, at least more than they did earlier, to make a plan of action for the next day. Quynh and Andy have been together for so long, it is hard for him and Joe to comprehend sometimes.

Before all this, Nicky never thought he’d have a relationship, and would have thought it an achievement if it lasted a lifetime without resentment. Now he’s been with the love of his life for more than ten times the years he’d thought he’d get on this Earth, and still he can’t quite imagine what it must be like to be Andy and Quynh.

What are a few centuries of holding Joe’s hand in the eye of millennia spent with no one but each other? To Nicky, everything.

But they don’t feel so unshakeable when Andy and Quynh saunter over to them, any unhappiness already only drop in the vast ocean of their past.

“The witchfinder will be here the day after tomorrow,” he says. “We’d have time to plan an ambush, but we don’t know where he’s travelling from.”

Andy nods, Quynh and her sitting down on one of the beds. “From what I gather the farming community is going to be hardest hit. Some disease is killing their crops but they’re all accusing each other of being witches instead of working to fix it.”

“Most of the servant girls are also worried,” Quynh says. “The young ones don’t have any status or husbands to protect them so it will be easy to ridicule them publicly.”

Andy curses under her breath. It is a mountain of a task: To protect everyone at risk is impossible, an attempt to kill the witchfinder before he arrives too risky in case they fail.

“Do we think he’s going to get to work immediately when he gets here?” Andy asks, “Or do we have time beforehand to take care of him and get away unseen?”

“I think I’ve got a solution,” Joe says. “I helped one of the kitchen boys who told me word that witchfinder has a team of helping hands who he sends ahead to make sure his mission is a success. They’ve been here for a few days now.”

“Great, more work.” Quynh pulls her legs into her body and puts her forehead onto her knees. It’s not an admission of defeat, they all have different ways of working out their problems.

“Not necessarily,” Joe continues. “Apparently they’ve been stalking some of the women in town who’ve been accused. The kitchen boy I spoke to, his sister is one of them, and he says he could swear he’s seen one of them come to their front door late at night. Didn’t knock, but the boy says he saw a white mark on the door in the morning, something like this.”

He pulls his shirt sleeve up to show them his underarm where it looks like someone has sketched three circles running into one another with kitchen coal. “For my money, they’re prepping the town for the witchfinder’s arrival so he can make quick work of the witches without having to ask too many questions.

“If we remove the marks, we make his job harder, slow him down… might buy us an extra day to get rid of him.”

He shrugs, but only to hide the beginnings of a small smile, Nicky can tell.

“Oh Joe,” Andy says, not even bothering with the spread of hers. “We’ll make a strategist out of you yet.”

Nicky claps Joe on the back, easy and triumphant, but he’s tired and so he doesn’t stop his head from sliding onto Joe’s shoulder when it comes to rest there.

“No need to thank me, boss,” Joe says, his arm around Nicky’s waist in an instant, like always. “But I will graciously accept the bed for me and Nicky tonight as my rightful prize before another day of scheming.”

He tugs Nicky into a standing position and then away from the bay window as Andy groans, and Nicky pats Quynh’s head when she pokes her tongue at them. They’re all laughing, though, the easy magic of friendship easing the sharp edges of the work to come and bets lost, and Nicky thinks that maybe this is the real forever he should focus on: Secrets, and laughter, and the four of them against the world, this evening, and the day after, and how ever many they would be granted. Together.


	3. Chapter 3

Joe wakes feeling rested, warm everywhere he’s pressed up against Nicky. He’s just had the best sleep he’s had in a while, the comfort of a real bed even sweeter after months sleeping in dingy inns or making their camp outside in the woods. Inhaling deeply, Joe lets the scent of Nicky and a hint of perfume from the day before wash over him, reveling in a rare moment of peace.

Nicky is asleep in his arms, and Joe is loathe to wake him, even though the light of the day is already filtering through the dark green canopy. It cocoons them, like they are sheltered in a springtime woodland bower, or floating through the open sea. Alone, together. Safe.

Outside, the sounds of the castle stirring increase, and Joe only vaguely tries to catch whether anything sounds out of place or in need of his immediate attention. He feels boneless and languid, the state of contentment only really achieved in the moments immediately after waking, and he wants to prolong it as long as possible.

But duty calls. 

There are muffled footsteps combined with a knock on one of the bedposts; Joe tightens his grip on Nicky as he startles awake.

“Are you two decent?” It’s only Quynh, and Nicky relaxes against Joe as quickly as he had tensed up.

“You should assume the answer to that is always no,” Joe says. While he would happily conform to the local custom of sleeping nude, it is not practical for a group of warriors who may have to run or fight at a moment’s notice, so Nicky and him are in their breeches. Uncomfortably tight breeches, but still. They’ve all seen each other in far worse conditions.

“I am,” Quynh says and pulls back part of the canopy, an onslaught of light to their senses, “I was just being courteous.”

Nicky winces and holds up a hand to shield his eyes as Joe reluctantly lets go of him, peels away so he can sit up. Quynh is in some sort of undergarment herself – a bulky cotton dress – and wastes no time flinging herself down onto the mattress across the bottom of the bed. She wiggles around to find a comfortable place and makes a show of relaxing into the soft mattress. 

Joe can’t blame her. He would’ve probably done the same in her place if their situations had been reversed.

“What’s the plan?” Nicky’s eyes remain closed, but he sounds far more awake than Joe feels.

Quynh is very much the second in command, a fact that she wears with easy confidence but never holds over their heads. The line of authority is not something that Nicky and Joe would have questioned when Quynh and Andy picked them up hundreds of years ago, and they see no need for it change.

“Well _you_ need to get ready to join the honourable Lord Fendrel on a hunting trip, including luncheon and a tour of the armoury.”

They know this was coming, Quynh merely relaying the trip’s itinerary with a hint of delighted teasing, but Nicky still groans. He hates hunting parties. Back when it was just the two of them somewhere in no man’s land around Jerusalem, Joe had sometimes overheard Nicky whispering to the small animals they’d hunted before he’d snap their necks to prepare them for cooking. At the time, Joe had thought the other man had finally lost his mind, or was practicing witchcraft or performing some bizarre ritual. It took a while for Joe to understand what Nicky was saying enough to realise that he was, against all reason, apologising to them.

“Lucky me,” Nicky grumbles, and Joe has the sudden premonition that he is going to _miss_ Nicky today.

“Meanwhile you and I,” Quynh says as she pokes the bed in the vague area of Joe’s foot, “are free to go clean some doors of those damned marks to make the witchfinder’s job hell.”

Joe nods, the roles make sense, before asking, “What about Andy?”

A growl from the other area of their room is his answer. Andy appears next to the bed suddenly, her expression thunderous. Somehow Quynh has managed to wrangle Andy into another dress, one that Joe didn’t even know they had, a picture to behold in pastels and pinks. Joe thinks even a fully armored and mounted knight would run from the pure aggravation Andy is exuding, but Quynh only laces their hands together and pulls herself up for a quick kiss.

“The esteemed Lady Adriana has an invitation for tea and promenading through the court gardens with Lady Fendrel.”

Andy’s face says “ _I’m not above murdering anybody who laughs_ ,” but the dress renders the message altogether more soft, which Joe can appreciate purely from an artistic point. 

Nicky is biting down on his lips to stifle a laugh, and the sight almost makes Joe lose his composure as well.

“I’m never playing anyone’s wife again. We regroup before dinner.”

Once they’ve seen Andy and Nicky off to their respective duties, Joe and Quynh meet back at the entrance to the court kitchens. Compared to the feast the evening before, the situation within the kitchen today is almost peaceful, quiet, The cold luncheon for Lord Fendrel’s hunting trip has long since been prepared and sent off, and the spread for Lady Fendrel and her guests is a small affair.

Joe lingers around the entrance, trying not to be in anyone’s way while snatching bits of food here and there, until he spots the kitchen boy from yesterday. The boy is one of many on cleaning duty in response to the lull in activity, since most of the castle’s residents are in the hunting party, and eagerly bounds over when Joe gestures to him.

“If your master has sent you then you’d best find something else to do,” the boy says when he reaches them, “there’s absolutely nothing to do here for newcomers.”

“Thanks, Carac,” Joe says, remembering his name. “Do you think they’d notice if we slipped off for a while?”

Carac’s brows furrow a little as he thinks, but after a quick look over his shoulder at his fellows, he smiles, “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

It’s an easy human thrill that’s never quite left Joe either, the call for adventure. He points over his shoulder at Quynh who's been silently leaning against the wall.

“We are going to disrupt the plans of the strange men you told me about yesterday. Remember?” Joe watches Carac’s eyes amble between him and Quynh repeatedly before settling on Joe, then continues, “do you think you could show us to your home so we could take a closer look at the mark they left?”

Carac is hesitant suddenly, but Joe is confident the boy will help them. “And you think you’ll be able to help?”

Quynh pushes herself off the wall with her shoulder, “No. We _know_ we can help you and your sister, so it’s best to remember that before you go telling anyone.”

Carac looks petrified for a moment before the whole meaning of Quynh’s words catches up with him and he visibly relaxes, like air left from his shoulders. 

He takes one more look back at the kitchen, sighs heavily, then gestures for them to follow, “Fine, come with me.”

He swiftly shows them to his home on the outskirts of the town, a small one room house that he apparently shares with his mother and sister. Carac’s mother is out of the house running errands and his sister also works at the castle as a laundress, so they are free to inspect the mark without attracting undue attention.

The mark closely resembles the three circles Carac had drawn on Joe’s forearm with kitchen coal: three circles running into each other with the addition of little dots around the places they intersect. It looks like they’re drawn in chalk at first glance, but when Joe tries to rub the symbol off with his sleeve it remains untouched.

Carac is hopping from one foot to another, “I need to get back,” he says, “is there anything else you need?”

Joe turns around and shakes his head.

“We’ll do what we can,” Quynh says, “but look out for your sister.”

Carac nods, and then he’s hurtling away to the castle, and Joe waits until he is out of sight before he speaks again, “They mixed the chalk with some kind of glue. Maybe tree sap?”

“Makes sense,” Quynh says as she looks around to check that no one is watching them closely, then produces a small dagger from her sleeve. With the side of the blade, she scrapes it off in a few steady strokes. Examining the door afterwards, it’s clear _something_ scratched the door a little, but it’s only obvious if you look closely and know what used to be there. 

One down.

“How many do you think there are?”

Quynh shrugs, “Probably more around here. Better question, how much time do we have?”

Joe looks at the sky. The sun is up and beginning to work its magic, but it won’t be long until it is noon and then past, and they have to return to the castle, “Five hours, maybe?”

“Let’s take the streets together in this part of town,” Quynh says, “then you take the harbourside, while I go to the inner streets. Meet back at the part of town where the woods start, and we do the rest of the houses there together.”

Joe nods, and they hug briefly. It’s a big task before them, but he is grateful that even with as little to go on as they have, there is something concrete that they can do to help. Joe tries to shake off the dour mood, and pushes himself to go a little faster – they need to hurry.

As Joe darts in and out of the streets, eyes scanning from door to door, he thinks about what Andy told him the day before: Joe is not the best strategist, even though he can be logical and objective when needed. He understands strategy perfectly well, accepts Andy’s reasons for how they go about their missions without having them broken down for him and if put on the spot, he can calculate how someone might attack him, and adapt his fighting style accordingly.

His mind can do it. It’s his heart that gets in the way.

Fighting in the crusades, he had been running on pure, incandescent fury because every other emotion had to be smothered in order to survive, even though he could feel it was scorching him from the inside out. These days, he is more balanced – or so he likes to imagine anyways – even a lion can become more docile in old age. But. There’s always a smoldering ember within him that never fails to ignite when he witnesses injustice too big to ignore, and it catches even faster when it concerns the three people closest to him.

It is the difference between knowing that what Quynh did was impulsive, and feeling that it was right to do so. He didn’t comment on it then, wouldn’t dream of inserting himself into an argument that had nothing to do with him directly, but his instinct was to side with Quynh. He’d have cheered her on if she told him what she was doing. 

As Quynh predicted, there are plenty of signs in the poorer parts of town, and it takes him longer than he’d like to scrape off all the ones he notices. The sun is close to its zenith by the time he reaches the harbour, where the gusts of salty water and wind are a welcome reprieve.

The marks are sparser here, but the ones he finds he struggles to remove with the same anonymity he could elsewhere. A servant without a master is not such a strange thing, but a servant vandalizing houses in the middle of the day? That is a story waiting to go south.

His heart nearly stops in dismay when he spots a mark directly across from a busy alehouse. If it was a marketplace, he might succeed in removing the mark unheeded, but the bored and wandering gaze from the alehouse’s patrons won’t afford him any cover.

Joe closes his eyes, lets his head fall back to look up at the sky. He has to remove the mark. Not to do so now when they have removed so many others would be cruel, likely drawing the full attention of the witchfinder to this one place. But the patrons from the alehouse will not be going anywhere anytime soon, and he is running out of time.

He sighs and steps up to the property in question, ignoring the eyes from the alehouse he can feel on him like a physical brush of fingers across his shoulders. If he doesn’t do anything suspicious or interesting, they will pass. Humans are like dogs that way, their attention so rarely caught for long.

The owner of the property does not open the door, so he knocks again. They might not be home, which would be ideal, since that will make it somewhat easier to remove the mark.

Surely, the patrons _must_ be distracted by now. Yet it doesn’t feel like he’s slipped into the background. Someone is still watching. He peers up at the mark on the door. There’s only one chance to do this right. It is a trick he has seen pickpockets use over and over. Distract with one hand. Do with the other.

Quick as he can, he slides the dagger into his left hand, so it is still covered with his palm. Then he knocks a third time, using the momentary distraction the gesture affords to reach up to the mark. With little finesse Joe practically gouges at the door in one quick swipe.

It hurts, the double-sided dagger cutting a deep line into his palm, but the pain is momentary, the cut heals almost instantly. When he steps away seconds later, he can still see half a circle on the door, but tells himself it is enough. It has to be, because he has to shake whoever is watching him. He takes as much time as he dares to use every trick he’s learned to lose himself in a town on his way towards Quynh. He’s not sure if it worked.

Quynh is already waiting for him where the woods encroach upon the town. There are not many houses here, but it is a poor area, and likely still has some marks. They need to work even faster now if they want to make it back to the castle for an hour or two of rest before the evening’s meal.

“We have company,” Quynh says as she pulls Joe in for a hug, “man in a strange, feathered hat, behind you to your left.”

Joe’s heart sinks. Retreating slightly from Quynh’s embrace, they have a wordless conversation.

What Joe knows, Quynh knows: he has done his best to avoid attention and failed; when attention could not be avoided, he chose to remove the mark anyways; what’s done is done. They can continue on their mission, or they can abandon it and finish later, but either way, they have made themselves a target today.

“Minsk, 1301,” Quynh mouths, and moves her left shoulder in a shrug so minor Joe would have missed it if he didn’t know what to look out for. It’s all he needs to know to understand what she has in mind.

Behind Quynh’s left shoulder lies the way they came into town the day before, and if he remembers correctly, it takes a moderately sharp turn about half a mile into the forest. Ideal for a minor chase and a quickly set up reverse ambush, a tactic they learned from highwaymen in Belarus. And have perfected since, Joe likes to believe. He only wishes he had his scimitar on him, or _anything_ heftier than two daggers up his sleeves and one in his boot.

Quynh kisses his cheek, makes a demure giggle that he’s never heard from her before, ever, and sets off into the woods. The slow pace is harrowing compared to their usual speed. But it’s so Joe can take after and jostle her in a mock display for what has to be the only reason an unmarried man and woman would take off into the woods together. 

It’s a show, for deniability, and one key advantage: small touches to their wrists, light touches with their feet, shoulders and heads, combined with finger taps in quick succession, all add up to ‘I am armed here, here, and here.’

When they’re alone, Nicky and Joe sometimes make a game out of it. This does not feel like a game, though. 

When they are actually in the woods, Joe hears a hunting horn and wishes with a sudden ferocity that Nicky was both here with them preparing for a fight, while also being safe far, far away with the hunting party.

By now, it is obvious they are being followed, the steps rustling behind them clearly belong to more than two people. But is it three? Four? Even more than that? Joe can’t quite tell.

They don’t break into a run. The trick works best if they speed up gently, carefully putting one step after another between themselves and their adversaries, without the pursuer realising.

Joe wants to turn around but doesn’t, relying on the squeezes from Quynh’s hand to set their pace.

The moment they reach the turn in the road and break line of sight, they separate to hide. Joe throws himself into a crouch behind a large chestnut tree, pressing tight to the bark. Looking around, he can see Quynh swing herself up onto a branch, slightly more exposed, but with the potential to be twice as deadly.

Joe trains his eyes on the road.

He is reminded of a few years back – perhaps a few decades by now, it’s hard to keep track sometimes – when they had pretended to be a travelling circus. It’s one of the easiest ways that a group of mixed sexes and ethnicities can pass from town to town without causing any overly negative attention, but it meant that every so often, they had to actually fulfil their unspoken promise of a show.

Nicky had hated it, for the most part, even if he was only sparring or target shooting, but Joe remembers those days fondly. Standing in front of a crowd, juggling with apples, raw eggs, or, if he was feeling particularly lucky, knives. It’s a different type of adrenaline, and like no other, it is rewarded with applause.

The image of the four of them performing acrobatics comes to him now as he watches Quynh confidently perched on a branch no wider than her leg, expression cold and calculating. When the henchmen who followed them round the corner, they are already dead, even if they aren’t aware of it yet.

One is smaller than Joe imagined, rotund, while the other is more lanky, but both are wearing strange black hats with a single white feather tucked in the rim. They seem like the kind of men who sign up for a job that seems easy, but have absolutely no idea what they’re in for.

The taller man gets only the moment in which Quynh jumps, the crack of the branch, before she’s on him, and a second crack separates his spine from his skull.

Seconds after she leaps, Joe bursts towards the shorter target, knives in both hands – his first two slashes find the tendons at the back of the other man’s ankles and sever them cleanly. The man only has time to gasp in shock as he falls before Joe is there at the man’s head to finish the job and prevent him from making more noise. When he looks up to speak or ask a question or something, he doesn’t remember, because in the moment’s distraction Quynh goes from smiling viciously and standing over her target into a graceless collapse with a suddenly blank expression – a crossbow bolt spearing her through the forehead. 

“Quynh!” Joe’s not sure why he yells, too late for warning, concern or momentary grief. 

He’s too far away to pull the arrow from her forehead without making himself an easy target, so he crouches instead, scanning the trees for where the bolt came from. His dagger goes flying the second the marksman reveals himself, another bolt at the ready.

He only has time for that, then dives behind the tree again to avoid an arrow to the head himself. There’s a pained yelp, but more cursing. He’s hit nothing vital, then.

His aim is better at shorter distances, but it’s unlikely the man will come closer on his own. If one of their pursuers watches Quynh rise from the dead, and manages to escape with that knowledge, the problems they’ve had so far are only going to multiply. And there’s a witchfinder coming to town.

Joe leans past the opposite side of the tree and throws his other dagger, pleased when it hits the marksman’s shooting arm – which slacks to the man’s side and renders the crossbow nearly useless. The man growls in pain and frustration, as he tries to load the crossbow with his one good arm. 

Joe has one knife left. He sees the man’s gaze flicker from Quynh back to him, and Joe can’t be sure what the marksman sees, what he thinks. There are two steps between them, and this time Joe isn’t taking any chances, aiming for a quick kill.

He watches the lines on the man’s face deepen, his eyes widen, and hopes it’s in shock, seeing death come running towards him. 

Too late Joe notes it’s angry satisfaction, and too soon there is a knife in his side.

During the crusades, this seemed to be Nicky’s favourite way of killing him, and out of some bizarre sense of propriety, Joe had sworn himself to never let anyone else kill him this way. So he doesn’t die.

He wrenches the blade out of his own side, gasps as the pain floods his senses, briefly overtakes everything that he is, then ebbs back into nothing as the wound starts to close. 

Joe hefts the weight in his hand, ready to throw the knife after the marksman again, but he is long gone, and Joe can’t leave Quynh alone here with an arrow in her forehead.

Another hunting horn sounds through the forest. But for Joe, the hunt is over.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“Where is Quynh?”

This is the first thing Andy says when Joe shows up at their quarters alone. It’s early evening now, and she and Nicky have started to get ready for dinner. They must have been long back, and Joe can tell from one look in Nicky’s eyes that they were worried.

“She’s okay,” he says, a little out of breath. “She’s okay.”

It takes Nicky approximately two seconds to pull away the jacket Joe had taken off one of the dead henchmen, his fingers pressing fast to his skin under the hole in his blood-drenched shirt.

“Who stabbed you?” Nicky says before he kisses him, “what happened?”

There is not a lot of time to relay everything, and Joe is starving. He’s not going to make it through dinner at this rate.

Nicky helps him sit down at the bay window again, and wordlessly reaches into the satchel he left with that morning, offering some bread, some berries, and cured meat to Joe that he must have snuck from the hunt. He could kiss him. He does. 

After taking a brief moment to eat a little, he begins to report what Quynh and he have been through.

“So you left Quynh alone in the woods?” Andy asks, freezing mid-motion while fastening the laces on her sleeves, and Joe doesn’t think he imagines her eyes twitching towards the chest with their weapons, “ _ and _ let the third guy get away?”

“She’s fine,” Joe says, hastily chewing some of the meat he just bit off, “she awoke after I pulled the arrow from her forehead, and they were gone at that point, didn’t see her come back. But we had to clear up the mess of the other two before anyone came by and then we were covered in so much mud and blood she wouldn’t have been able to go without attracting stares. I’m only here because I took the jacket off the guy she killed first.”

“What is she waiting for?” Nicky asks.

“Well,” Joe says, “either nightfall or the arrival of the witchfinder. There’s a good chance he’ll come to town on the same road we took, so she insisted she stay out and try and get rid of him before he even arrives. We could blame it on miscommunication, now that Valric is dead.”

Andy curses under her breath and runs her hands through her hair, carelessly undoing the neat plaits Quynh had made for her that morning.

“She must be exhausted,” Nicky says, and Joe can tell the news has made him more solemn than he was before. The arrival of the witchfinder is imminent, but until Quynh died, until Joe was stabbed, the trip had felt more like an unexpected holiday. Maybe they’d underestimated, or ignored, the dangers of this mission.

“How many times have I said you can’t build an army on self-sacrifice?” Andy looks like she wants to kick something quite badly, probably would if her dress allowed, but instead she pauses in front of the mirror and begins trying to fix her hair.

“I don’t like this,” she continues, “there are too many variables here, too many unknowns, and you and Quynh not sticking to the plan doesn’t exactly help.”

Joe frowns and crosses his arms in front of his chest. It’s unlike Andy to get personal, which is mostly only upsetting because it means she is more worried than she’s willing to let on. “Would you rather we led them back to the court so they could’ve linked us to you and Nicky?”

“I’d rather you didn’t let one of them escape, but what’s done is done,” Andy sighs, her posture slumped. The three of them are quiet for a moment, listening to the church bells that call for an evening prayer. “And we’ve got this stupid dinner to go to as well.”

The day catches up with Joe then, and he sways a little in his seat. If he lay down, he could probably sleep for hours.

“What about the other homes?” Nicky asks.

Joe blinks at him. His thoughts are playing catch-up now, the meaning of Nicky’s words lost to him until he elaborates: “The homes in the Western part of town. Are they still marked?”

Joe nods slowly, and he realises what they need to do as Nicky says it.

“So we’re going back to remove the marks there as well.”

This is not quite a question from Nicky, more a reminder of the priorities they came into this mission with. 

Andy doesn’t look happy about it, and Joe half expects her to argue the point, but she just looks at Nicky in quiet contemplation. Joe’s eyes are drooping shut.

The church bells ring again, the evening prayer is over, and Andy curses as she gathers her dress together.

Joe heaves himself up: his shirt is still stained, he probably smells worse than he looks, but they need to go to dinner. He closes his eyes,just for a moment, to let himself feel annoyed by this, but it’s hard to open them again.

He’d have to channel Quynh’s determination. The lifestyle they share comes with an appreciation of a job well done above almost anything, a near unshakeable belief in their abilities and their purpose to do good in the world. But they all have reasons that are theirs and theirs alone when the call to arms comes. 

Nicky’s hand appears on the small of his back, his other on Joe’s bicep, and all Joe needs to do is put one foot in front of the other as he is gently led forward. A pity he won’t be able to spend the entire dinner like this, wrapped in Nicky’s embrace. When they finally stop, Joe blinks his eyes open at last, and sees that Nicky has not steered him towards the door, or the wardrobe, but to the bed instead.

“But the dinner-”

“You need to rest,” Nicky tells him as he gently pushes him down to sit on the mattress, then busies himself in wrangling Joe’s boots off his feet. Joe looks over at Andy, who is waiting by the door, and clearly unhappy still, but he finds approval for his rest in a sympathetic curl of her lip. She is so tough, this warrior from a time so long ago he can’t even imagine, hardened by millennia of fighting, but as ever, Joe is struck by the real warmth in her eyes, the faint worry line between her brows that tells a story of hidden concern. Her face does not betray her years but for this one line, worn deep by the uncertainties of many lifetimes.

“I’ll join Quynh after dinner,” she says, “you rest up, wait for Nicky to come back.”

“Thanks, boss,” Joe smiles, leans into the kiss Nicky presses on his forehead before he lies down, and barely hears the door close behind them on his way to sleep.

When he wakes next it is twilight outside, but he feels surprisingly refreshed. He pulls himself out of bed to look out of the window and gauge how much time has passed. The light out on the streets is beautiful, the blue hour touching every street around the court with her soft-edged glory, and Joe lets himself stare and appreciate for a moment. The dinner should be nearly over if the sun has travelled this far, he thinks. They should be back soon.

Joe wrenches his eyes from the reflection of the lavender sky above the small visible strip of sea and ambles over to the washbasin, stripping his shirt as he does. The water is cold, but in summer he doesn’t mind so much as long as there is good soap to be had. 

The cold water gets rid of the grime, dust, and the crusts of blood lingering on his torso, and washes the last remnants of sleep from his mind as well. When he is done, the water is a cloudy gray color, not obviously tinged with blood, and he tosses it away without worry that it will alarm anybody.

When he turns around, Nicky and Andy are just stepping back into the room, and Andy makes a beeline for him, arms outstretched for the bowl. She looks like she always does when they’re about to go in for the kill, frayed around the edges but her eyes in complete focus. He hands the bowl to her.

“Good dinner?”

She shrugs, a small smile on her face, “Depends on your definition of the word. I think I finally figured out the use of these dresses.”

She peels two layers of her outer dresses away to show a large pocket she’s created in the skirt underneath by tying two of the other layers together. It is filled to the brim with food she must have slipped from the banquet table, bread and cheese, and even what looks like some parts of a roasted chicken.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Joe jokes and reaches for a piece of cheese, already anticipating her slap to his hand as she whirls the dress away.

“You can steal your own,” Andy’s voice is all mirth and mock-admonishment, “this is for Quynh.”

Joe laughs when she hands him a grape anyway and pads softly on the cold floor as she rolls her eyes and goes off to get some more water.

Nicky is sitting by the bay window, the last dregs of the day’s blue light bathing his cheekbones, his eyes. Joe likes to think of himself as an artist, but in all the hundreds of years he’s lived, he doesn’t think he has managed to capture an image of Nicky that does him justice quite yet.

“Feeling better?” Nicky asks, eyes lighting up as he spots Joe.

“Very much so,” Joe says, sitting down next to him and letting a kiss drop onto Nicky’s face as he goes.

There are moments when the world is so small that all he can hear is his own heartbeat. It is those moments in which they live, in which they stretch beyond their occupation. Joe treasures these times beyond all else.

“Ready for some more de-marking?” Nicky tangles their fingers together.

Joe heaves a put upon sigh, more theatrics than true weariness, “Depends. Do I have to put a shirt on?”

A chortle escapes Nicky, exactly the sound Joe hoped for.

“Much as I don’t want you,” he replies, “this is still a covert mission, and I feel Andy wouldn’t be too happy at you scandalising the townspeople while her and Quynh are trying to murder a witchfinder.”

“My voice of reason,” Joe leans in for another kiss, longer this time, deeper, although he’s not sure if it is to tease Nicky or torture himself, “light of my days, warmth of my nights. What ever would I do without you?”

“You’d be fine,” Nicky says with a laugh, nipping at Joe’s lips. Doesn’t even have the decency to blush like he used to decades ago. “Now get dressed.”

They’re all in dark garments when they take to the streets again.

The hooting of seagulls and the lapping of the sea mingles with vague sounds of merriment from the alehouses close to the harbour, but they leave the sounds behind as they make their way further out, until they’re left with their footsteps on the cobbled streets and hoots of the odd barn owl. Letting their senses grow accustomed to the darkness and the quiet, they don’t speak on the way, falling into the focus that comes with the mission’s they take, the unspoken agreement on their formation.

At the edge of the woods where Joe left Quynh they separate, and Andy clasps the backs of their heads as she brings them in close each. Her meaningful look is not lost on Joe despite the lack of light, and he watches after her as she vanishes, first into the night and then into the forest.

Nicky’s hand closes around his wrist, and he gives him the barest hint of a tug, so light Joe nearly misses it. He knocks their shoulders together, the darkness a cover for this small ritual as they return to the neighbourhood. But the lack of light is also a hindrance – where earlier, Joe and Quynh had no problem identifying the white marks on the doors from the street, he can now see barely two meters ahead of him.

He looks at Nicky, who’s close enough that he can make out his features, eyes shining in the moonlight. They don’t speak, but they don’t need to. Nicky presses his forehead against Joe’s, then swiftly produces a knife from his sleeve and moves down to the right side of the street they’re on, leaving the left for Joe. If they get separated, they will meet again at the point where they parted. Failing that, they will meet back at their quarters. And failing that at the harbour, then that cottage they own on the coast 50 miles south of here. There are things that don’t need to be spoken, and how they will always be able to find their way back to each other is one of them.

In less than two minutes Joe can’t hear Nicky’s footsteps anymore, but he knows that’s a good sign. Nicky has always been always light-footed, stealthy and steely-minded in his pursuits; Nicky would have made an excellent thief if his moral code had allowed for such things outside of absolutely necessity.

Joe tries to make quick work of the marks again. He doesn’t like working in the shadows, but he manages fine, and it is only once that he has to duck away when the light from a window in a house he’s ridding of the mark shifts, and a person leans out the window. When it comes down to it, he can hold his breath for a really long time. 

The fact that he can’t see anything makes the job harder, but not impossible, and the moon is his companion until he meets Nicky where they started out together.

“Got all of them?” Nicky whispers - he doesn’t really have to ask, can say as much with his eyes, but Joe is happy he verbalises the question nonetheless. Because he  _ wants _ to nod, say yes, solemnly, then yes, enthusiastically, and drag Nicky back to their quarters and resume the teasing from earlier.

But.

This task they’re doing may well prove futile in the morning, if Quynh and Andy eliminate the witchfinder, but he can’t help thinking about the house in the harbour that he only half-scraped the mark off. He could leave it, he knows, a half-decent job likely sufficient. But he sees Nicky’s eyes, eager, expectant, and he knows, he  _ knows _ if it comes down to it and the people in this one particular house were to face any consequences because of his oversight, he would have a harder time living with himself. And there’s a lot of living left to do.

“Nearly,” Joe whispers, and nods towards the harbour, “there’s one I didn’t quite manage earlier.”

He doesn’t need to say more than that, Nicky already stepping aside to let him lead the way. It's faster getting to the harbor than it was escaping from it during the day while trying to shake dangerous pursuers, so Joe is especially grateful for the cover of night.

They stop a few times, Nicky stilling Joe with his hand at any sound of steps, but manage to avoid any run-ins with the town’s night watch and their torches. When they round the street, Joe breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of the alehouse closed, the pubs sitting empty and the patrons home, only a sporadic few candles illuminating the windows on the upper floors.

He steps up to the house as Nicky takes to the other side of the street as a look out, and feels his heart still, and everything in this moment in time feels  _ right _ . Nicky at this back, light in his eyes. Success of a mission. The prospect of rest. Of home. Maybe he can convince Andy and Quynh to lay low on the coast after this. The thought makes him feel warm, like a cat that’s curled up in the sun.

Joe raises his dagger to scrape off the rest of the mark from the door. It comes away in one fell swoop, and he steps away from the door, pleased with himself. He hasn’t cut himself this time, the marks are off, and that’s all that should matter.

Only of course it is never that easy.

When the door opens, something in Joe knows instinctively that it’s going to be the man who stuck a knife in his side a few hours earlier - instantly taking in the way the other man drags his arm not needing to make out his face in the lamplight. They’re already fighting as Joe processes his observations, Joe attempting to parry with his dagger against the man’s sword. If it’s just this man, Joe doesn’t need to kill him like this, turning to give Nicky a straight line of attack would be enough. 

Joe grinds his teeth together, trying to find a way to get around the longer reach of the sword.

Above them, windows open to the familiar sound of crossbows being fired, and Joe ducks at the arrows whizzing over his head, needlessly. He isn’t the target.

“Nicky?” He half-asks, half-whispers. His dagger clashes with his attacker’s sword as he ruthlessly takes advantage of the man’s bad arm, but it’s all too loud, taking too long. He doesn’t want to draw any more attention than necessary, and this is already plenty.

Not taking his eyes off his opponent, he listens out for any grunts of pain from Nicky, or a body falling to the floor, but when he hears nothing, he knows not to worry just yet.

“All good,” Nicky’s aim is true even at moving targets, even in the dark, and the men at the windows don’t have time to reload before his knives hit home. Joe hears two tell-tale thuds from above before a crossbow clatters to the ground next to him. He can see Nicky dive for it out of the corner of his eye, but he can tell it won’t be of use without the arrows. And Nicky is newly out of weapons.

“Run,” Joe tells him, still not looking away. More lights appear in the windows around and above them, candles being lit to investigate the racket outside. “I’ll catch up with you!”

The man he’s fighting laughs, as if Joe does not have grounds for brazenness, and Joe marvels at the overconfidence of men.

“I stabbed you before,” the man says, and whirls with surprising agility to wield his sword like scythe, “now I will stab you again, and you will not recover.”

He does manage to cut Joe, but not even as deep as before, and the blow clearly takes more out of him than it does Joe.

“No, you won’t,” comes a voice from over Joe’s shoulder, and just like that, Nicky is by his side bringing the crossbow down over the man’s head, kicking him on the way down for good measure. The crossbow breaks with the force of the blow, and from the sound of it, so has the man’s skull.

Joe doesn’t wait to check if he’s dead, he knows Nicky will make sure of that one way or another, and picks up the sword the man dropped. Then he assumes a parrying stance, his back to Nicky’s back, surveying the street for more attackers.

When nobody else attacks them, escape becomes their most pressing concern, the street alight with hushed conversation from windows. They cannot risk having their faces recognised, if one of the townspeople brings a torch. 

Or the nightwatch.

He doesn’t need Nicky’s tap on his elbow to know that they need to take off, that they need to run, he is already going. But he wouldn’t miss it either, more assurance than moments like this usually afford him. He yearns for the feeling of contentment from moments ago, replaced by adrenaline and fear, and he tries not to let his feet drag. This is not the time to get tired.

There are shouts behind them now, and Joe risks half a glance at their pursuers. Three more, all with torches. He can’t tell if they’re armed with crossbows too, but he’s not willing to risk it.

Nicky is faster than him so he sets the course, raising his left fist to his ear to signal he will make a bolt down the next alley on that side. Joe could follow. Nicky would signal him if he needed him to, but he doesn’t, so it’s up to Joe.

He should, probably. But he thinks not. Letting Nicky escape to the left, him running straight so their pursuers will have to split up as well, reorganise, buying them time. Only Nicky is now unarmed, and what if they all go after him alone? Joe doesn’t have it in him to pull another weapon out of a loved one in such a short span of time.

He turns as Nicky does, or maybe after a moment’s hesitation, because he thought about not turning, and that is a problem.

He could never have anticipated that they were going to throw their  _ torches _ . And it doesn’t hit him, but he stumbles, adding to the gap between him and Nicky, and Joe watches as he slips away, content that at least part of his plan worked.Andy’s words are ringing in his ears, loud and clear: 

_ You can’t build an army on self-sacrifice. _


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can have a little rating increase, as a treat.  
> Alternatively, quick warning, there's going to be smut in this chapter, but it's not... relevant to the plot, so you can skip on to the next chapter once things get going if you'd rather!  
> If you _do_ read it though, I personally love getting song recommendations from fic, so I'm just going to tell you I wrote this chapter while listening to [In Our Bedroom After The War](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOgh9j9fP_A) by _Stars_ , and let you do with that information what you want.

Forethought. Joe wouldn’t say it’s something he  _lacks_ ,  precisely, even though Andy or perhaps Quynh might see it that way. If you could build foresight from hindsight, then the two of them certainly would have more going on than he does. How much more? Joe couldn’t say, but he is sure that he’d have acquired some of his own in the over 500 years he’s been alive, much more than if his life hadn’t ended (and begun) that day in Jerusalem.

No, Joe doesn’t lack foresight. It’s more that he seems to have an overabundance of everything else, every feeling and thought equally as important in the moments that he has to make decisions.

Which makes it almost impossible to do anything in moments like the one he’s in right now, where his overwhelming feeling is to take his stolen sword, and cut down the three men who are holding their torches like feeble yet painful weapons. They have him cornered against a row of houses, but he can’t help the thoughts of maintaining proprietary running through his head.

These men are just members of the night watch, no more dangerous than any human who feels the need to maintain order and serve other people, their thoughts probably no more nefarious than Joe’s own. They’re not the enemy, not really, and if Joe disposed of them now they would definitely have to leave before the morning light, there’s too many strikes against them, and he doesn’t even know if Andy and Quynh have killed the witchfinder yet.

Besides, the men in front of him don’t strike him as the brightest candles burning out there. They’re openly discussing what to do with him before they’ve even disarmed him, for starters.

“Do we have a cell free?” The smallest of the men, closest to Joe, asks his companions.

“Do we  _ need _ one? I’m sure we could deal with him right here,” responds the tallest of the group.

Joe scoffs.

“We can’t do that, remember last time?” came the small guard again, “we need to ask him about the other guy. We don’t even know if he’s guilty yet.”

“He ran away from a scene leaving at least one person dead, how does that not look guilty to you?” The tallest of the guards stalks closer to Joe, brandishing the torch in his face. Joe bats it away with his sword, causing the man to drop it and curse.

He turns to the only guard who hasn’t yet said anything, “Go on then, get us some witness reports, so we can drag this guy to Lord Fendrel first thing tomorrow morning. Make quick work of it. One dead murderer is better than two escaped.”

The silent guard heads off, and Joe slightly relaxes his stance. They’re definitely not going to be able to drag him off anywhere, but he’s still stuck trying to figure out the best get away from the situation without a bloodbath.

The smaller of the guards lowers his torch slightly, and is looking at Joe with obvious apprehension, “We don’t know if it’s going to be quick. What if his master is someone powerful?”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s a courtier’s right to deal with their own servants as they please,” the smaller one continues, growing more agitated, “enforce the law on them as they see fit. We can’t take that away from them or it’s  _ us _ next.”

“Hm,” the taller one grunts, still edging closer to Joe, though not quite as brazen now, “for sure he doesn’t look like he’s from around here.”

There’s a movement in the alley behind the two men, a shadow that creeps across the streets and lingers at the corner. It’s Nicky, pausing to catch his breath, but his eyes are focused, two perfect storm clouds even in the dark. Nicky darts his eyes over the men with the torches, then Joe and the sword still in his hand, and then up until they lock eyes.

Ready to raise hell, if Joe gave him even the smallest of signs that it was necessary. But Joe has an idea. 

He shakes his head at Nicky, once, nearly imperceptible to the men from the night watch who miss it, then trains his sword back on them. 

“Hey,” the taller guard says to him, “what’s your name?”

Joe looks from his blade to the man’s torch, deliberate and slow enough for him to get the message, and says, “What if I don’t tell you?”

He figured provocation would lead to the guy attacking him with his torch, but Joe’s surprised when the man is stopped by his smaller companion.

Abruptly, the silent guard they sent away to ask witnesses returns, and Joe catches Nicky press himself against the wall to avoid being spotted. But the third guard looks like he has other things on his mind anyway as he comes back to where the others still have Joe cornered, and Joe holds his breath in anticipation. Depending on what he says now, Joe will either have to disarm all three of them, then resume escaping with Nicky, or-

“Looks like we need to give him a trial - neighbours said that they killed the man on the street, and there are two others dead in the house, but it looks like they attacked him and his accomplice first without provocation.”

Joe exhales steadily through his nose not to alert them to his relief. He makes quick eye contact with Nicky then lowers his sword ever so slightly.

“Neighbours also said they were surprised that there were men in the house who fought them,” the third guard continues, “It’s been a widow and her two daughters in there ever since her husband died two months ago, but not a trace of them anywhere.”

The tall guard grunts again, which Joe is beginning to suspect is his main mode of communication. If his eyes were any smaller, he’d resemble an overgrown hog. “You heard the man,” he says to Joe, “care to explain yourself?”

Joe doesn’t avert his eyes, but pretends that the sword in his hands is wavering, “I demand to be tried by Lord Fendrel,” he says and juts out his chin like a youth who is beginning to develop an attitude, “not by you scoundrels.”

The impertinence gains him another swipe with the torch, which he parries easily enough, but not with the force required for the man to drop it this time. If they’ll let him, best to hide his true skill for now.

“Listen here, man,” the guard snarls at him, “how do you think Lord Fendrel deals with arrogant little criminals causing trouble in the middle of the night?”

Joe permits him to invade his space this time, because it gives him an opportunity to look down his nose at the guy, before pretending to ignore him, staring off into the distance of the man’s shoulder to where Nicky is still perched in the shadows, waiting for Joe to give him a sign.

“In a manner fair and just,” Joe says, “like he always does. Lord Fendrel is known for his generosity across the lands, and I have heard of his benevolence even in the corner of the world I am from.”

He waits for a moment, hoping he’s been explicit enough for his entire audience to catch on. He spots Nicky moving in the shadows of the alley across from him again, his eyes wide, but Joe doesn’t know yet if from understanding or incredulity.

“I knew he wasn’t from here,” the smallest guard says, a triumph so small Joe barely wants to count it, “you can’t be tried by Lord Fendrel if you’re not one of his subjects, that’s not how it works.”

“Then who are my actions to be judged by?” Joe asks, as if he hadn’t caught everything they had discussed earlier. He keeps his eyes on Nicky, trying hard not to let a smile slip onto his face as he continues. “I work for  _ Signore Bacchi _ , the Lord Fendrel’s esteemed guest, and serve as his manservant.”

The recognition in Nicky’s eyes is instant, and he nods at Joe once, one hand on his chest, before he takes off into the night without making a sound, leaving Joe to his own devices. And his three guards, who are now looking at each other like they are steeling themselves for a vaguely drastic action that Joe is sure will never come. So he decides to go one step further.

“But he is not kind or just like Lord Fendrel, he might not let me leave this soil again if he finds out. Can I not be tried by Lord Fendrel?”

When a snarl spreads across the tall guard’s face, Joe knows his words have had the desired effect. 

“You should’ve thought about that before you went around attacking townspeople.”

Joe engages in a short fight with the man, parrying his swipes with the torch long enough so it doesn’t look like he isn’t making an effort, before fumbling his sword and pretending to struggle as the smaller of the guards ties his inexpertly wrists with some rope. Hopefully the altercation has lasted long enough to give Nicky time to make it back to their quarters undetected.

“I hope he lets us watch,” the tall guard says as he drags Joe towards the court, “sometimes you can learn something from these foreigners.”

For his own sake, Joe hopes he doesn’t. However, he has to concede the last point, and tries, probably failing, not to smile to himself as they haul him off towards the castle.

There is no light coming out from under the door to their quarters at the court when the tall guard raps it with his knuckles, his other hand closed around Joe’s restraints. This could be a good sign. 

This could just as easily be a bad sign.

There’s some shuffling going on behind the door during which Joe barely breathes, and the second it is yanked open he has to look away for multiple reasons.

The first being that he is happy to see Nicky’s made it back, is safe, and is going to get them both out of this, and happiness is not what he’s supposed to feel right now. 

The second being that Nicky’s taken off all his clothes save for a long pair of undergarments and a cloak that looks carelessly thrown over his shoulders, and if he doesn’t look away he’ll have a charge of impudent lechery added to his transgressions. 

“What is this?” Nicky says, accent thicker than usual. He’s carrying a candle, and from his vantage point Joe can only see his knuckles and fingernails shielding the flame.

The two guards bow, quickly, and the tallish brute is clever enough to leave the talking to his smaller companion.

“ _ Signore Bacchi _ , we’re very sorry to disturb you, but we have reason to believe that we have just apprehended your manservant causing a disturbance on the streets tonight.”

“ _ Scusami _ ?” Nicky says, brusquely, and steps closer to Joe, harshly grabbing and tilting his chin up with one finger, “ _ Giuseppe _ ? Is that you? What did you do?”

The Italian form of his name was not something they’d discussed before taking his mission, but Joe tries his hardest not to let the slight frisson he feels at Nicky’s words show, keeping his eyes averted. He used to hate it. But now, well.

“We’re afraid so, milord,” the small guard continues, “we apprehended him on the street earlier after a brawl that involved three other men, all of which are now dead. This man fled the scene together with an unidentified accomplice, although we’ve been given to understand from neighbours that he may have acted in self-defence – we have not yet been able to question him in any detail, particularly about his accomplice who escaped, because the local law places it on you, Signore Bacchi, to decide on his fate. We would, however-”

“Is that so?” Nicky interrupts him, and Joe chances a short glance in his direction. His voice drips with menace, but there is a different light altogether in his eyes. Joe swallows, and hopes - nearly prays - that if anyone notices they will attribute it only to fear.

“Uhm, yes, sire,” the guard continues, “as he is your servant it is up to you to determine how to deal with this transgression, however-” he stumbles as Nicky turns to him “-if you are going to be merciful, we would appreciate it if you would allow us access to your manservant for- for questioning-”

“Thank you,  _ signori _ ,” Nicky cuts him off, and Joe feels Nicky’s hand closing around the ropes binding his wrists, yanking them away from the taller guard who’d been holding them. “Rest assured that I will deal with this in the,” he pauses as if to think, and scowls darkly “ _ most _ appropriate manner.”

And with that he yanks Joe forward, making him stumble into the room.

“Thank you,  _ signore _ , much obliged-” the guard starts, but before he can finish Nicky has slammed the door in his face and they press against it with their ears, face to face, watching each other, and listening for the guards’ steps.

One of the guards says something, one grunts in response, but it’s too low for Joe to make out, and then finally, finally, they’re walking away, and he feels himself sagging, head lolling against the door before Nicky is on him, crowding Joe against the dark wood.

Nicky’s fingers slide into his curls and he holds Joe’s face in his hands with firm, reverent fingers as he presses kisses to his mouth, his cheekbones, his eyelids. If Joe completely let go and relaxed all his muscles, he’s sure he would still not sink to the floor, would instead be held up by Nicky.

“How are you feeling?” Nicky whispers between kisses, “did they do anything to you?”

Joe almost chuckles a weak laugh, more breath through his nose than anything else. “I’m fine,  _ mi amor _ , much better now. You’ve seen them, I could’ve outwitted them with half my brain missing.”

Nicky cradles Joe’s head in his hands as if to make sure that his skull is still attached then gives him a languorous kiss, slipping his tongue in Joe’s mouth and kissing him so deeply that it takes Joe a moment to remember their conversation when he stops and rests their foreheads together.

“I prefer it all in one place,” Nicky says, his eyes searching Joe’s for something Joe doesn’t quite know how to assure him of immediately. Nicky set the candle down on a small table next to the door before he pinned Joe to it, but even the soft glow of the light can’t soften the concern he sees.

“So do I,” Joe replies, and smiles, “I just took a little stumble, nothing to fret about. And it’s all worked out the way I planned, too.”

Nicky’s smile is so close that Joe can feel it against his skin clearer than he can see it, “You planned on ending up in a bind?” He slides his hand down Joe’s body and tugs at the ropes holding Joe’s wrists together just once, but sharply enough to send Joe careening into him and they’re back to kissing again, more frantic this time. Joe’s hands are still trapped between them as he presses in as far as his ropes will allow.

It’s the kind of kiss that sears down Joe’s spine, makes him arch his back off the door even as he smiles into it, somehow hot and sweet at the same time, because it’s Nicky, always Nicky, and that just does it for him.

“I don’t hear you complaining,” Joe says, smiling still.

Nicky’s hand slides out of Joe’s hair and down his shoulders, to his back, so he can turn them around. Joe just follows as Nicky starts walking, chasing his lips with closed eyes. It is dark anyway, and he trusts Nicky to find where they’re going even as they bump gently into parts of the furniture.

“Andy and Quynh?” Joe asks between kisses, panting, “are they back yet?”

The bed bumps against the back of his legs, and he loops his bound arms over Nicky’s head before he lets himself fall backward, both of them sprawling diagonally across the bedspread.

“Not back yet,” Nicky gasps more than anything, moving on to pepper kisses on Joe’s throat, “might stay out till the morning.”

“Interesting,” Joe says, but anything else he might have said is immediately displaced from his brain when Nicky finds the pulsepoint of his heartbeat on his throat with his mouth and teeth, and begins sucking sharply.

It took a while, when they first met each other, to reach the level of physical intimacy they are comfortable with now. Not that their relationship had not always been overly physical, to an extent – killing each other with melee weapons over and over having a strange intimacy to it that Joe found hard to move past in those days – but it took years, if not decades, before their touches turned tender.

Now, as Nicky strips him of his clothes, Joe also tries to remember the first time those touches were not just accepted, but returned. How strange to trust a man to hold your soul when he’d previously tried to take it away.

They don’t usually make time for intimacy like this when they are on a mission, the need for it paled against the tension of their work, but when Nicky lies back on top of him, both of them naked bar for the shirt hanging loosely from Joe’s shoulders, Joe’s heart swells with the delight of being able to be this close to Nicky.

“Are you going to take these of me?” Joe asks, wriggling around in his restraints as he places them over his head, gripping the bedpost.

“Hmm,” Nicky pretends to contemplate this, but it was a done deal before Joe had even crossed the doorstep, “I thought I might keep them on for a while. Unless you have any objections?”

He can practically feel Nicky’s smile, hot and cold all over his body, slightly feral, even, and Joe inhales sharply. He can pretend to be affronted, but it will never stand.

“What happened to the Nicolò who I found praying in the shade of a tree after the first time he kissed me, who blushed when I touched his throat for the first time without a weapon in my hands?”

Nicky stills above him, his breath still hot on his lips, his cheek, close to his ear.

“He died many, many moons ago,” Nicky whispers. He trails a finger over Joe’s belly, featherlight and faintly ticklish, and they both watch the trail of goosebumps he leaves in his wake, “Why? Do you want him back?”

Nicky’s finger is so very close to Joe’s cock now, skimming his hip bones and the strip of skin around it but not touching, not quite yet. He rests his hand on Joe’s thigh for the briefest of touches, igniting all the right nerves in all the wrong places, and it’s taking Joe an embarrassingly long time to focus enough to speak again without whining.

“I love all versions of you,” he says. He really is hard by now, not long and he will start to ache, “and I like to think I’ve shaped every version of you a little, ever since that first time.”

“The first time you killed me?” Nicky takes his hand away, and Joe thinks he might whine after all. Nicky’s fingers had just started to dip lower - skimming Joe’s balls - and the anticipation of his touch, any touch, at this point has begun to make him squirm. “Or the first time we had sex?”

His voice is so close and, maybe Joe only imagines it, a little breathless, and he has to close his eyes to savour the feeling all over, in his neck, at the bottom of his skull, all the way down his spine. Nicky is rustling with something, still not touching him, and Joe strains against the rope around his wrists as he tries to roll to his side in search of  _ any _ kind of friction on his dick.

“Both,” Joe is panting by now, and his eyes fly open when he humps into thin air. Nicky sat up when his eyes were closed, and is crawling back over him now, pinning Joe’s hip back to the bed with one hand. His pupils are fully dilated, and Joe feels faint in all the right ways, “But I’ll never forget the first time you gave yourself to me, all limbs and muscle and so needy, so breathy, all flushed from your cheeks down to your pretty navel. That Nicky would have been scandalised by how you’re treating me now.”

Nicky kisses him then, slow and deep, his teeth grazing Joe’s lower lip as he sucks it into his mouth, and Joe moans to illustrate his point. “I don’t think you want that Nicky back though,” Nicky says against his mouth. He is still pinning Joe to the bed with one hand, but uses the other to push his knee over onto the mattress, and Joe goes willingly, staring up into Nicky’s eyes as he’s spreading him open. “Because that Nicky would never do this.”

Nicky’s finger is slick with oil as he pushes it into Joe’s ass, kissing him softly to ease the discomfort, and it’s too much after nothing for so long, and it’s not enough at the same time, too filthy and too pleasurable. A growl rips from Joe’s throat as Nicky begins to move his hand, slow and steady pushes with his finger inside of him.

“I’ve created a monster,” he gasps, and Nicky has the audacity to laugh, a breathy sound against his face.

He lets go of Joe’s hip to smooth his hand through his hair as he adds a second finger and Joe bucks into the touch.

Nicky works him open slowly, methodically almost, until Joe is writhing beneath him and angling his legs to pull Nicky’s hips closer. There are all sorts of needy sounds escaping his throat as he clings to the bedpost over his head as if for dear life, but he doesn’t care anymore, not really, not when Nicky is looking at him like this, all blown pupils and dark reverence. He bites his lips.

“Come on,” Joe huffs, and bucks his hips once more to get his message across.

Nicky’s hand cups his jaw for a kiss once more as his fingers inside Joe still, just curling in on themselves ever so slightly.

“Ready?” Nicky whispers, and Joe nods.

This is maybe what he loves best about having sex with Nicky: not the thrills of his body as they coax each other to climax, but the proximity of him as he slides into Joe, the closeness of this man in his arms, inside him and around him, without whom he’d be half of who he was.

“Alright?” Nicky asks when he bottoms out, “binds still okay?”

Joe nods, quickly, and wraps a leg around Nicky’s hip to anchor himself as Nicky begins to move. He hasn’t stopped looking into Joe’s eyes, still searching candidly for a sign that Joe may have any lasting discomfort from his run-in with the night watch, their attackers, or the long day they’ve had. He can get a little possessive at times, and Joe shouldn’t find it endearing of all things, knows Nicky would grumble about if he knew, but he can’t help it.

“So beautiful,” he says instead, “my Nicolò.”

The pace Nicky sets is single-minded from the start, and Joe knows it isn’t meant to last. They have only a little time for each other, this affirmation that they are still here, still okay, still whole and ready to take on the world together - it’s not the best moment for drawn-out love declarations. The danger isn’t over, and they may be immortal, but they do need to sleep.

So Joe closes his eyes as Nicky fucks into him, one of his hands coming to join Joe’s around the bedpost, the other wandering down Joe’s leg to push it up further. He cries out, short and muffled, as the stretch allows Nicky to sink into him deeper, the staccato rhythm of his thrusts hitting the place inside him that makes him see stars in no time.

“I love you so much,” he says, striving for coherency in whatever language comes first to his tongue, “My heart lit up like a thousand suns when I saw you’d come back for me, even when I’d hoped you’d run away.”

Nicky releases a shaky breath and Joe can feel the grip around his leg tighten, the strain visible in his face. He’s close, but wants Joe to go first.

“Can you come like this?”

“I can try,” Joe pants, but Nicky’s losing patience already, and closes his hand around Joe’s cock that’s been hard and leaking across his stomach. He pumps him once, twice, and another thrust from his hips is all Joe needs and he’s coming in thick spurts, sensations of  _ Nicky  _ and  _ this _ and  _ always  _ flooding his brain as he can feel his muscles go limp.

Getting together a last modicum of control, he tilts his hips up to allow Nicky better access as he chases his own pleasure with unrelenting thrusts.

Nicky’s breathing is ragged, his eyes wide in a way that Joe’s learned to treasure beyond anything, and he might be the most beautiful thing Joe has ever seen.

“I don’t know why we’re immortal,” he says, not breaking his gaze, “but when you’re here sometimes I feel like we could also be invincible.”

Nicky buries his head in Joe’s shoulder as he comes, his whole body shaking apart with it. Joe loops his arms around Nicky’s shoulders again, the angle doesn’t quite work, but he’s warm and sated, and Nicky a pleasant weight on top of him, and he can’t care about that now, too focussed on the twin heartbeats he can feel in his ribcage, his and Nicky’s pounding out a rhythm all of their own as they calm down together.

Just before Joe is about to drift off, Nicky stirs again. His hair is a mess, his eyes drooped half-shut, but the smile he gives Joe is freer than any of the ones Joe’s seen that day.

“I love you,” he says, and Joe smiles, and kisses him until it’s almost pointless to say it back to him.

He protests only a little when Nicky slips free of him and his embrace, because he returns with the candle, and a knife and a piece of cloth, ridding Joe of his binds at last. He flexes his wrists as Nicky helps him out of his shirt, cleans his belly and snuffs the candle before closing the curtains around them tucking himself against Joe to kiss his wrists over and over.

“I nearly hadn’t been able to do it,” Nicky says into the darkness around them, and Joe is not quite awake enough to make sense of all of it immediately, “leave you there with those guards. I saw you had everything under control, and I knew you didn’t need me, but the thought of leaving you there when I could have helped-”

He cuts himself off in favour of moving his kisses to Joe’s knuckles, giving his hands tiny soothing kisses. The scratches and burns from the rope are gone already, but Joe pulls Nicky tighter into him anyway, tucks his nose into his shoulder.

“I know,  _ hayati _ ,” he whispers, “but I’m here now, and we’re both safe and sound. Tomorrow, Andy and Quynh will tell us of their adventures tonight, and then hopefully, we never have to see this town again.”

“Hopefully,” Nicky agrees, yawns, and Joe barely feels a last kiss to his wrist before he lets himself sink into the welcome arms of sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The witchfinder arrives at court the next day. 

It is before noon still, and the welcome party Lord Fendrel has organised is smaller than the one Nicky got when he arrived as Signore Bacci two days prior, but that doesn’t mean the whole court isn’t watching in some capacity as the carriage pulls up.

It is warm today, and Nicky itches to adjust his collar more than once as he stands next to Lord Fendrel on the steps to the court, hands clasped behind his back. He can feel the heat spread across the town like a charge of lightning looking for release, stifling activity and setting the townsfolk on edge. Everyone around Nicky appears to hold their breath for the moment before the door to the witchfinder’s carriage opens, but it’s hard to tell whether from excitement or anticipatory dread.

Nicky resists the urge to shift from one foot to the other, uneasy at the thought of what the reveal might bring. He looks at the sky and hopes for rain.

“This is it,” Lord Fendrel murmurs excitedly, leaning towards Nicky.

Nicky nods absent-mindedly, and forces his face into a matching smile. He is not superstitious( or he tries not to be); it has no place in a line of work like theirs, because it is probably superstition that led Lord Fendrel to seek out a witchfinder in the first place. Only, the smile on Lord Fendrel’s face makes him want to goddamn run away.

At least one of them needs to be here though, for reconnaissance if nothing else, and right now, Nicky would rather it be him than one of the others.

Joe should be somewhere in the crowd of servants and lower courtiers; Nicky concentrates on the spot between his shoulder blades where he imagines Joe’s gaze to rest like a steadying hand. Deep breath in, hold, then release.

Appearance is not always an indicator for age, or skill in a fight, but the witchfinder looks older than Nicky imagined. He has white hair, short legs, and appears to use a staff to walk, but he climbs out of his carriage with surprising agility. Nicky makes a mental note of that. Lord and Lady Fendrel step forward to welcome the witchfinder, and Nicky finds himself tense like a bow when Lord Fendrel inevitably turns to introduce him as well.

“Witchfinder General Hornstaff, allow me to introduce you to my guest, Signore Bacci.”

For all intents and purposes, Hornstaff doesn’t move like a man who would pose much of a challenge to fight or kill if you met him alone in an alley or even in a deserted corner of the court. Nicky is certain that he would have most likely dismissed this man as a threat under different circumstances. There are witchfinders from all walks of life, they say, but there is something about this one that makes it very hard to determine which walk, exactly, he’d be from.

He appears to drag his left leg ever so slightly and moves with the slow pensiveness typical of people his age, but not in the way Nicky’s seen former soldiers or aged warriors do. He dresses like a man who can afford to sit still, to lie down when he needs to, and yet the skin of his hands is roughened like there was a time he had to work for a living. Witchfinding is profitable work, for those who can get it, and Nicky’s skin crawls with all the offers of quick money he and the others have received to carry out similar services. 

And while he cannot picture anyone paying Hornstaff for this kind of violence, his decorum too affected, too mild, Nicky feels himself bare his teeth in more of a grimace than a smile when Hornstaff rests his eyes on him. They’re an uncomfortable shade of light blue, like an ice burn in their intensity, and Nicky feels like he’s not just being looked at. He’s being dissected.

“Signore Bacci,” Hornstaff inclines his head in a small bow, “ _ piacere. _ ”

Nicky’s mouth is too dry to properly return the Italian greeting, but he manages to nod, and Lady Fendrel continues with the introductions.

“The  _ signore  _ is introducing us to the customs of the Italian court for which we are very grateful. He and his charming wife have been staying with us these past few days.”

Hornstaff nods, his eyes glinting with a sharp sort of interest, “She is not joining us this morning?”

“Ah,” Nicky says, clears his throat, “Lady Adriana is quite unwell this morning and is resting, but should hopefully be able to join us for dinner again later.”

The lie slips from his lips fairly easily, although the Hornstaff’s unyielding gaze only increases the heat he feels under his collar.

Earlier, he had woken in Joe’s arms to incessant banging, and reached for the dagger he kept under his pillow before most of his senses had fully caught up with all his surroundings. The night had only just started to turn into day, and with Joe’s sleep-laden arms around him, it had taken a moment for him to determine that the noise came from a window, and another to realise that it was Andy and Quynh who had apparently scaled the building.

They both looked a little worse for wear, dark circles under their eyes, clothes muddied and torn, Quynh still covered in blood from the day before. That it hadn’t been a successful night for them went without saying, but even as Nicky burned to ask what had happened, he just wordlessly turned to wake Joe enough that they could move to the cots in a secluded area of the room and leave the bed to Andy and Quynh.

Quynh immediately stripped down to her undergarments, leaving her bloody shirt on a growing pile of clothes they needed to burn later. Blessed with the gift to sleep wherever, whenever, she crawled into the bed and was asleep near instantly.

“He didn’t come,” Andy said as she joined Quynh, “we need to figure out how to take him down from the inside today.”

“It’s okay, boss. That’s why we infiltrated the court in the first place,” Nicky gave her a small, conciliatory smile, “you should get some sleep while you can.”

Andy nodded, before crawling into bed next to Quynh who didn’t stir at all. Nicky curled up next to Joe for another hour before they made their way down to greet the witchfinder, careful not to wake Andy and Quynh.

“She sends her apologies, and is eager to make your formal acquaintance this evening.”

Lady Fendrel makes a face of semi-sincere regret hearing the news, but it is evidently of no consequence to Lord Fendrel and Witchfinder General Hornstaff, who are already climbing the stairs to the court.

All eyes are on them, and Nicky quickly seeks out Joe’s in the crowds as he turns to follow. He can’t betray any emotion, not if he could be seen by someone who would assume him to be unspeakably cross with Joe after he got caught last night. The incessant whispering is hard to shake.

“I have to say, I am honoured to be greeted personally by you, Lord Fendrel,” Nicky hears Hornstaff say, “my services were arranged by a man called Valric, I believe, so I assumed it would be him who welcomed me today. I trust he is… well?”

The way he stretches the vowel on the last word makes Nicky think that he knows of Valric’s demise. Perhaps even the truth behind it, but it is a thought too far-fetched for Nicky to entertain.

“I’m dreadfully sorry to be the one to impart this news, Witchfinder General, but Valric is, indeed, not well at all. There was an unfortunate incident at dinner the other night, and I am afraid he is no longer with us.” Lord Fendrel’s gaze is downcast, and he moves like it physically pains him to have to admit this particular piece of information to Hornstaff.

“Oh my. Natural causes, I presume?”

Nicky doesn’t think he imagines the flare of suspicion in Hornstaff’s blue, blue eyes.

“We can’t say for sure,” Lord Fendrel dispiritedly announces, “but we believe it might have been poison. The corpse is still with the court physician, you see.”

Hornstaff nods like this was all as expected, and knocks his staff twice on the ground, “He didn’t die in battle, but I’m sure he died valiantly. He was right to recommend me if your town is this cursed by witches, who aren’t afraid to stoop so low as to poison a man brave enough to stand up to him. Don’t you worry, we will of course find the hags responsible for his death and your other troubles.”

Their entourage reaches one of the court’s many parlours and Nicky sits with Lord and Lady Fendrel, Hornstaff and a few other men of the court at a table as refreshments are presented. Nicky spots Joe winding his way into the room carrying a jug of water, but he only circles the table and does not yet step up to offer him anything.

“It is pleasing to hear that,” Lady Fendrel delicately places a hand on her chest, “your reputation precedes you, as I’m sure you’re aware. We’ve heard so much of the work you’ve done for other towns and courts in the area.

“Indeed.” Lord Fendrel spares a smile for his wife before turning back to Hornstaff. “I’d be most curious to hear more about your methods, if you would care to divulge them!”

“A witchfinder’s methods are manifold, my Lord, but I have to say, the key to any successful witch hunt is complete vigilance.”

Hornstaff lets his gaze roam around the room as if to demonstrate, and the uneasy feeling returns to Nicky’s bones when Hornstaff’s piercing eyes find his face. There is nothing out of the ordinary here, nothing Nicky should have to fear: he is an ‘esteemed guest’ at the court, he is a man, he has done nothing that explicitly crossed the witchfinder, and yet he can’t fight the feeling that Hornstaff’s gaze lingers on him in particular.

“You see, when people commit crimes against the Lord – such as witches, who all lie with Satan in order to gain their powers – it doesn’t leave the body unmarked,” Hornstaff pontificates, now letting his eyes roam over his rapt audience, “no matter how well a witch may be trying to hide, no matter her skills of deception, there is always a sign.” 

His eyes land on a serving girl who is pouring beer for one of the men sitting next to Nicky. There is a mottled white scar across the back of her hand, and she starts to tremble when she becomes aware of his gaze, and the room falls uncomfortably silent. Hornstaff leans forward.

“What is your name?”

“M-Myra, sire,” her hands are shaking so badly it is impossible for her to pour any beer without spilling it, and she needs to set the jug down.

“Myra,” Hornstaff says, drawing the syllables of her name out the way a cat might paw at a mouse long before it goes in for the kill, “how long have you worked here, at the court?”

“M-many years, sir,” Myra stammers, “Lord and Lady Fendrel are very kind and generous employers.”

Nicky can tell she tries to curtsy, a non-verbal excuse that she is busy and might need to excuse herself from a conversation, but is too unsteady on her legs to do so.

“Interesting,” Hornstaff drawls, “were you and your brother also both serving at the banquet two days ago?”

Myra opens her mouth to respond, although no words come out. Her eyes are wide and terrified, already brimming with tears, and the sick pleasure visibly on Hornstaff’s face as they threaten to spill over sets Nicky’s stomach roiling. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this conversation is going, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let it happen.

“ _ Prego _ ,  _ signore  _ Hornstaff, I don’t think this young woman is responsible for Valric’s death,” Nicky interrupts, trying to sound as appeasing as possible, “I sat next to him all evening, and she was nowhere close.”

Hornstaff’s piercing glare lets off the girl, and turns to Nicky instead, his annoyance at having been interrupted palpable. Nicky wonders how often he has been impeded during his ‘interrogations’ before, and knows that the answer will be a depressingly low number.

The thing is, Nicky knows men like Hornstaff. They were the same men who led his division during the crusades, the same men who mocked and belittled and tortured the people native to what they called the Holy Land all those centuries ago. 

And he is so goddamn tired of them.

Hornstaff smiles at him, wide and wrong, “Be that as it may, Signore Bacci, but you see, to practice witchcraft one needn’t be close to the victim. A witch may well curse you from afar using an array of herbs and spells. Some are even known to use dolls.”

Nicky doesn’t budge under the challenge of Hornstaff’s stare, his drawn eyebrow, and he can tell it is beginning to make the rest of their company uncomfortable, shifting from one side to the other on their chairs.

As if from nowhere, Joe appears at his side to top up his glass of beer, pretends to overbalance and almost rests his hand on the top of the chair behind Nicky’s shoulder to steady himself. Though it appears odd, Nicky can tell the interruption is graciously received by their company as it diffuses tension he let build almost absentmindedly, and he is grateful until he sees the thunderous expression with which Joe, too, levels Hornstaff.

They need to be careful, and  _ now _ , before this situation escalates and Andy gives them grief for ruining this mission.

“Of course, we could only really determine this if we were to search her house,” Hornstaff continues, undeterred, and leans back in his chair, “but in the meantime, I suggest we take her to the physician’s quarters and present her with the corpse of Valric.”

The whispers flare up again all around them, and Nicky and Joe exchange a fleeting gaze. Lord Fendrel also appears mildly disturbed by this, or potentially the previous altercation between the witchfinder and his guest, although he makes a noble effort not to show it.

“Indeed, Witchfinder General Hornstaff, that would well be possible, although one wonders, what could precisely be achieved by presenting the servant girl with the corpse?”

“It is a well-known fact that magic lingers in the body after it has been touched by it, particularly if it was a curse so strong as to cause death. If Myra here was indeed the one to curse Valric, the residue magic in his body will call out to her still. I therefore suggest we present her with the body and make her lay claim to the magic by placing a hand on his forehead, or his throat, where he was poisoned.

“If nothing happens then she is innocent, free to go. But if it is her magic that has caused him to die, it will call out to her upon touching him. It could be a cure, and Valric may well walk again as it leaves him.”

Nicky very much wants to look at Joe again but refrains, his warmth at his side has to be enough.

“Well that is not going to be possible,” he scoffs.

“Witches do the impossible all the time,” Hornstaff replies acidly, and belatedly Nicky wishes he hadn’t drawn his attention to himself again. His expression is almost amused by now, and if it was more inconspicuous, Nicky would think and question longer what exactly that tells him about Hornstaff. “But you are right. It is more likely that a jolt will go through the body, a small tremor as the magic leaves him. It’s a marvel to see in the flesh, if you care to join.”

Hornstaff looks back to Myra, who has begun to cry big, silent tears. Nicky hopes she doesn’t have much to fear. The body should be cold and rigid by now, and a touch should not cause it to jolt, much less come back to life, but then – he well knows of stranger things that happened.

Around them, people are already bundling out of the drawing room and Lord Fendrel seems to have left his unease about the situation behind, as he motions for a guard who unceremoniously pushes Myra in the direction of the door, so hard that she nearly falls over.

“To the physician’s quarters,” Lord Fendrel says, and offers a hand to his wife to help her up and out of the room, so they can follow Myra and the courtiers. They are still civilised - for now - but Nicky can feel the heat of the day combining with the fear of witches to slowly turn the masses into a mob.

Nicky gets up at the same time as Hornstaff and briefly allows himself to imagine stalling, involving him in a meaningless conversation until they are alone and then wringing his neck out for what he is putting the poor girl through. Unfortunately, it’s all but impossible to be alone at a court, and the damage is done. Myra is a target in the eyes of Hornstaff and the court.

There’s little else Nicky hates more than having to stand by and watch injustice carried out.

“After you,” he presses through his teeth and motions for Hornstaff to follow the congregation before him, then he waits a moment until he is just out of earshot and turns to Joe.

He can see his pain and frustration mirrored in his lover’s face, and longs to take his hand. There is nothing they can do now, and knowing that only makes it worse.

“How can we stop this?”


	7. Chapter 7

When Joe lets himself back into their quarters, Andy and Quynh are both awake but not fully up yet. Andy is sitting with her back against the headboard, Quynh’s head pillowed on her thigh, and she combs through her lover’s hair with both of her hands.

They can’t have been up long, Joe doesn’t know them to indulge in moments like this often, and he wishes that he could have drawn out his return, if only for their sake. But at the same time, there is a great disquiet roiling within him that gets worse with every minute that passes. Every moment that  _ man _ \- although that is not the choice of word Joe would use under the circumstances - continues to torment that innocent girl, is a moment they’ll have left it too long.

Quynh cracks open an eye to look at him, “Alright? Where’s our  _ signore _ ?”

Her tone is light, but Joe can see her eyes narrow, the line of concern returns between Andy’s brows, and he knows he must reveal more than he cares to.

Joe sighs noisily, “The witchfinder is giving a demonstration to some of the nobles. He’s singled out one of the servant girls to blame for poisoning Valric, and they’re currently taking her to touch the corpse. See if it stirs.” He doesn’t need to wait for their reaction to know what it will look like. Quynh sits up in an instant, Andy’s hand dropping from her hair as they share a meaningful glance.

“I say we end this tonight,” he says, mainly for his own benefit, because he cannot bear to think of the witchfinder longer than that. He’s never taken well to those who seem to enjoy the torture and torment of others as if it were a game - a diversion - instead of the reality of another human life they’re ruining.

Only, his words aren’t met with any protest from Andy and Quynh, who get up immediately to get dressed and start packing their things. They haven’t spread their things across their quarters, they never do when they’re on a mission just in case they need to drop everything and run in a heartbeat. If they can, they take the opportunity to destroy any evidence that they had ever been there in the first place, giving potential pursuers nothing to go on as they slip through the cracks of people’s memories.

“Did you and Nicky manage to take out the witchfinder’s men yesterday?” Andy asks, and Joe nods. It feels like weeks ago.

“We got the three who ambushed us. Did any of them come for you?”

Quynh and Andy both shake their heads

“So let’s assume we need only get rid of the witchfinder,” Andy begins passing bags to Quynh so she can stack them underneath the window for an easy escape.

As he sorts through the clothes to be burned, Joe sees Quynh produce a little vial of a dark liquid and decides not to think for too long where it had just come from and what else she carries on her body at all times.

“Poison at dinner,” Quynh says, “It’s the only thing we’ve done so far that’s actually worked out the way we planned it, and the general confusion and panic in the aftermath gives us cover to slip away.”

Andy’s face is passive, but only because she is considering what Quynh is proposing, and has learned over the years not to let an initial emotion betray her features before she’s made a full decision. It’s Joe who can’t help himself but harrumph a little at the suggestion, which gets both women’s attention.

“Thoughts?” Andy asks.

“It’s easy for the three of us, I think,” Joe says, “but Nicky’s going to be close to the action and-”

He knows when the reasons he lists are neither the ones Andy wants to hear, nor the ones that should actually count in a situation like this. He’s letting his emotions get the better of him again. He knows, but in moments like this, when everything seems to be happening at once, it’s like his tongue isn’t giving his thoughts a moment to breathe, to interject.

“Think about strategising this way,” Andy interrupts him, but there’s a small smile playing around her lips. “It’s practicing empathy  _ before  _ the situation arises in the field. So you can look at all the emotions as they come – and then make decisions that are not impacted by them.”

Quynh gives him an encouraging smile as well, but Joe can feel himself deflate. If there was time to work through everything that was happening inside of him right now, they would not be packing their bags already.

“I just don’t know about this. It sounds too easy.”

“Not easy, simple. Effective and bloodless. My favourite,” Quynh says, and raises an eyebrow at the stained shirt of hers Joe is currently balling up between his fingers. Andy and Quynh are both smiling, and even though they aren’t looking at each other, Joe can tell they are sharing it. It is exactly the same smile, after all.

“That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do here,” he says on a shaky breath, “that man is currently persecuting an innocent young woman because you poisoned a man two days ago. I don’t know how she’s faring right now, but let’s say they let her go, what do you think is going to happen to her if we kill him like that? Now the poor servant girl has a motive, and I’m pretty sure half the town will be more than happy to appoint themselves the next witchfinder and throw her on a pyre.”

Joe closes his eyes. Not because he can’t take Andy and Quynh’s reaction; Quynh has started slipping the poison back into her garments almost the moment he started speaking. But the task before them has just become mountainous in his mind. So what if they kill the witchfinder. So what if they get rid of two, five, ten more men like Valric.

The seeds of distrust have been sown in the minds of the townspeople, and not just here, but from what it sounds like, half of the British Isles. A team of four immortals taking out the odd witchfinder here and there is going to do  _ nothing _ to solve that issue, to stop the spread of this insidious belief. If they’re not careful, all they’re going to do is make it worse.

He opens his eyes when he feels Andy’s arm wrap around his shoulders and pull him into a hug.

“You always were a fast learner,” she says, “and you’re right. We might do better to get rid of him a bit more… diplomatically.”

Quynh’s eyebrows shoot up on her forehead, an expression Joe matches with his face wholeheartedly.

“I’m just saying we don’t kill him outright,” Andy clarifies, “kidnap him first, so we can find out more about his little throng of henchmen who love to scribble on poor people’s doors and then get rid of them for good.”

“At least in this town,” Joe says.

“At least in this town,” Andy nods, and they go back to packing up their things until they can hear footsteps in the hall leading to their quarters.

Joe is on his way to the door, an explanation for what they’re doing halfway to his lips, but it’s just Nicky, who looks like he’s been running the last few metres. That, and he appears to fall in on himself as the door shuts behind him, his hands on his knees, breathing hard, almost dry-heaving.

He holds up his hand when Joe approaches to touch him, shakes his head almost imperceptibly, and it pains Joe to do so, but he retreats to let Nicky work through whatever it is by himself for a moment. Andy and Quynh continue to tidy up the last pieces of their belongings, but he can feel the flickers of concerned eyes over Nicky and over him as well.

“ _ Dannato bastardo _ ,” Nicky finally presses through his teeth, but he puts himself to rights, and accepts Joe’s hand on his shoulder even as he presses fist to his forehead.

“What happened?” Andy asks.

“The body obviously didn’t move,” Nicky starts, speaking fast, “they pulled her into that office and put a cadaver in front of her, and  _ obviously  _ the body didn’t move. She was shaking so badly the entire time, but they forced her to touch it, right between the eyes. But a corpse is a corpse, and so thankfully, it remains still. So I say,  _ basta _ , we’ve seen what you wanted to see, she’s not the one who poisoned Valric, let her go.” He sounds a little breathless, the way he tends to do when he’s blindingly angry.

“Only of course that was never what he intended to do, was it? So he starts instructing people never to show too much mercy with people who we think might be witches, constantly repeating the word  _ vigilance _ until no one in that room is even able to look each other in the eye anymore. Then he says, just because she didn’t poison Valric doesn’t mean she’s not a witch, just look at the mark on her hand, and that there were more tests he needed to carry out to be certain.

“So he produces this needle and starts explaining the ancient tradition of pricking witches, and that he intends to do a full body exam with the aid of the physician, who he thinks  _ could learn _ something from him, and at that point he bids most of us good-bye and tells us he will announce the results of the examination later today.”

Joe sees Quynh’s hand clench around the vial of poison in her robe again, a slight tremor in her hand. Her eyes grow cold, and he’s glad he’s not the only one who’s so furious they’re barely containing it. Through Joe’s hand on his shoulder, he can feel Nicky shaking with rage too.

“There wasn’t a reason I could come up with to stay,” Nicky finishes, “not a good one that would make me able to help her, at least, and so I came here instead.”

_ She’s not that man’s first victim _ , Joe thinks, frantically, and it does little to calm him.  _ It’s on us to make sure she’s his  _ last _.  _ He looks to Andy, where he finds his sentiments mirrored in her face. Here comes the plan.

“Right. Joe and Quynh, I need you two on recon ahead of tonight. Find out where the witchfinder is staying, if he has a room in the court, then scout out how we can get him out of it the fastest. Find out if there are guards on watch, and if they’re stationary or if they patrol as well. We can dispose of them if necessary, but it’d be better if we can avoid them and pull this off as clean as possible.

“Nicky – I’m sorry, but I need you to go back there and play happy noble for a while longer, keep people out of our way and try to limit the damage the witchfinder can do as much as possible.”

Nicky doesn’t look happy with that, but he hasn’t looked happy since he stepped through the door. Joe’s eyes linger on his face, even though Nicky’s grim nod of acceptance comes almost immediately, but he springs into motion when Quynh passes them on her way to the door.

Her absentminded trail of fingers across their backs is as much a gesture of assurance, as it is a reminder.  _ Focus, now. This will be over soon _ . Joe cannot wait.

“What about you?” Nicky asks and nods to Andy.

“I’ll move our stuff to a safe place in the forest where we can camp out tonight,” she says as she starts tearing into the simple garment she’s wearing, then runs her hands over the sole of her boots to add dirt to her clothes, her face, her hair. Lady Adriana is no more. “Now go, before anyone else is tortured.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that things are about to get a bit more angsty, and to offer up a little plaster of fluff, [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263706) is another fic I wrote about Joe and Nicky and proposals through the ages - no angst at all, I promise!
> 
> (Also for anyone following this - yes, the chapter count just went up again, but only because I had to split this particular one. The good news is there'll be another update soon!)


	8. Chapter 8

Nicky’s face hurts. His face hurts, and everything he’s done today feels like the worst kind of pointless. Overall, not a great start to the evening.

He spent most of the afternoon with Lord Fendrel and various nobles, trying to entertain them with tales from the Italian courts they haven’t heard before, all the while trying to find excuses not to leave the vicinity of the physician’s quarters. He strained his ears to listen out for any cries, but the utter silence was worse, if anything.

He sat on the edge of his seat, impatient and restless, as most other people at the court regained their composure, and when Myra finally emerged from the chambers, he nearly stood to follow her. There were no tear streaks on her face that he could see, but she held her scarred hand close to her body. It was wrapped in bloody cloth, and Nicky couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad sign.

“Now we’ll just need a repeat of that tomorrow for the public trial, won’t we?” Hornstaff called after her, and Nicky fought the urge to strangle him on the spot. Then Hornstaff announced that he was setting the first public witch trial for the next morning, just outside the city walls, forcing Nicky to tune out the delighted cheers and claps from the nobles around him. He watched as Myra slouched away, her face resembling that of every man and woman he’d ever seen waiting in line at the gallows.

Hornstaff then promptly declared that he was not going to be joining Lord Fendrel and his party for dinner, the activities of the day too tiring, and because he wanted to prepare for the next day. 

So everything they’ve done feels pointless. And his face hurts, because Nicky’s had a forced smile clamped over his jaws for the past two hours. 

When he finally bids Lord and Lady Fendrel good night he takes a moment just to rest against the wall, trying to get rid of the annoyance that’s begun to creep deep into his bones. He just hopes that he’s given the others enough time to get ready, and that Hornstaff taking dinner in his quarters has not been too big an obstacle.

Back in their quarters, their rooms have been swept of everything – Andy’s certainly made good use of the afternoon – and his friends are sitting on the big canopy bed together. Joe pats the space next to him and Nicky jumps at the chance, sinks into the cushion next to him. 

“All clear?” he asks the room.

Joe nods, Andy and Quynh both voice their assent.

The others give him a few moments to sit, before Joe reaches under one of the pillows and produces dark garments for Nicky once more. The others are already changed, and now it is time to lay Signore Bacci to rest as well.

As he changes, Andy goes over the plan with them, and they argue over positions and timing, but mainly they just fill the hours between now and then. Between the four of them, they each know what they’ve prepared, and they each know what comes most naturally to them. They’ve done this so many times.

When he’s dressed, Nicky sits back down next to Joe, just as Andy prods Joe with her big toe, “Over to you.”

Joe’s brows furrow, “Over to me?”

“Tell us a tale, story master,” Quynh leans forward and bats her eyes at Joe, like a child pleading for an extra sweet. It’s beyond comical on her usually stoic face, and Joe laughs.

“I see how it is. You’re telling me you’re incapable of being alone with your thoughts for a few short hours?”

“I’ve been alone with my thoughts for longer than you’ve been alive,” Andy deadpans, but she’s smiling.

“Alright then, gather ‘round children,” Joe relents, leans back into his cushion and lopes one arm around Nicky’s shoulder and the other around Andy’s. “Have I told you the tale of  _ The Three Apples _ recently?”

He waits for a moment, until Nicky, Andy and Quynh all say “No” with varying levels of enthusiasm, then launches into the story.

Quynh nestles up to Andy’s side and rests her head on her stomach, Andy’s arm wrapped loosely around her shoulders but her hand holding firmly onto her arm.

Nicky closes his eyes and settles back against Joe’s shoulder, letting his words wash over him. He knows it’s not going to be a relaxing experience, Joe is too animated a storyteller to let him relax against him completely, but Nicky is not going to complain.

He can slowly feel the sense of defeat and pointlessness he’s carried with him all day seeping out of him, replaced with the contentment and focus he needs. In a way, this is the perfect kind of family evening for them. Huddled close, relaxing as they listen to one of the seemingly endless stories Joe loves to tell, preparing for the extraction of a criminal with the purpose of avenging a defenceless soul.

He’s grappled with the purpose of his seemingly endless life before. Has had points when nothing and no one, not even Joe, had seemed worth it to keep going and spend even a second longer on this planet. However, it’s the memories of evenings like this, and those they have to come that have pulled him back from that particular brink.

_ A sense of belonging and the chance to do some good _ . It’s a seemingly simple purpose, but it is so full, and Nicky wouldn’t miss it for the world.

He listens to Joe with half an ear, enough to laugh and make noises of indignance at the right parts of the story, but focusses the rest of his mind on the sounds from the court. When the lights are out, when the voices have died down on most of the corridors, and even the lowliest servants still have an hour or two to sleep, that’s when they need to strike.

“… and the Caliph says to the slave, ‘Tell me the story you speak of! If it is more wondrous than the tale of the three apples, why indeed – then I may spare your life.’” Joe ends his story with a twinkle in his eye and a nudge to Nicky’s shoulder.

“Oh yes, I just remembered how I was able to spend so much time alone with my thoughts,” Andy groans, “It’s because they didn’t come with open endings like every single story you’ve ever told us.”

Joe laughs when she punches his shoulder good-naturedly, and Nicky smiles at their antics. To himself, he wishes Joe had picked a cheerier one before they went on this mission, but he knows Quynh is fond of the ones with a little bit of violence, a little bit of a riddle.

“I think it’s time,” Nicky says when their laughter begins to ebb, and they all listen into the stillness of the court. None of them wants to move, they’re too warm and too comfortable now, but they all know it needs to be done.

Andy is the first to peel herself away from Joe and Quynh until soon they all stand at the door, ready to go. Unlike the last few times, they are all armed to the teeth in a way that still gives them a full range of movement in case of pursuit. No taking chances after the last few altercations with the witchfinder’s henchmen.

“Clean and simple,” Andy says, and shares a steadying glance with each of them. “See you at the camp.”

Joe and Nicky nod at her, at Quynh, before moving out of their quarters. At the end of the hallway, Nicky turns left and Joe turns right, and they share the briefest of glances. He knows the skillset of no other so completely, would trust no one else to hold their own in a fight like Joe does while still having his back, and yet.

Nicky wonders sometimes if it is a recent development, not wanting to let Joe out of his sight when they’re on missions, and if so, where the instinct is coming from all of a sudden.

Hornstaff’s quarters are located on the first floor to the west of the court. It is Joe and Nicky’s job to scout out the way, get rid of guards or other obstacles and then act as a lookout on both sides of the corridor while Andy and Quynh sneak into the witchfinder’s quarters.

There, they will immobilise him, tie him up and lower him out of the window. At Andy’s signal, Joe and Nicky would move out again to receive the witchfinder and lash him onto a horse that Andy had procured earlier, and then leave the city on the fastest route out. They haven’t decided yet who’s going to be riding with Hornstaff, but Nicky thinks it’s probably better if it’s Joe – he’ll be out in the open, yes, but faster, and Nicky has proven better at evading the night watch on foot so far.

There are no guards to deal with on his end and Nicky slinks into the shadows. He has knives in both hands, and his eyes trained on the corridor stretching in front of him. Joe asked him once how he managed to sneak up on people so completely, or vanish in full sight, and Nicky did not have a satisfying answer for him.

A part inside him just seems to belong to the stillness around him, and with a few deep breaths Nicky can become part of his surroundings without a problem. He imagines it is the same as if Quynh tried to describe to them how she can vanish into thin air. A part of her is just flighty like that - she will always belong to the sky.

So he can hold still and quiet for almost any amount of time, his thoughts at once focussed and drifting to all the times they’ve done this before. Fighting their way through cities and palaces, against crooked nobles and with lowly crooks, always one foot in the grave but leaping away with the other. He can already feel the wind that will stream through his hair when they run from this place, hears Quynh’s delighted chuckle, the taste of Joe’s kiss on his lips, Andy clapping his back. A smile tugs at his lips.

He centres himself with thought of their impending freedom, ready to run at the first sound of the signal.

Some things will never change.

Or so he hopes

This is taking too long.

He’s not sure how long it would take Andy and Quynh to make sure Hornstaff is not awake for the ride to camp, but he’s seen Andy take down men that were heavily armed, and most importantly, awake with one well-directed jab to the head. They must have run into an issue tying him up, he decides, to quell the rise of unease deep in his stomach.

The signal has to come any moment now.

He sinks deeper into himself even as he reaches out with his senses, trying to gauge any sound, any movement. Has he missed it? Does he need to begin to make himself scarce? It is not really an issue if he has, Joe will be able to deal with Hornstaff himself in a pinch.

And yet.

He sees a figure out of the corner of his eye. Someone is moving down the corridor of Hornstaff’s quarters. If it was Andy and Quynh on their way to escape, there would be two of them, but the movement is too smooth to be Hornstaff. Have they been compromised?

Nicky acts fast when the figure stops in the shadow of the hallway a few metres away from him. He lunges, draws his knives, and pins the person to the wall. One knife through the fabric of their jacket at their left shoulder, the other against their throat.

“Really, Nicky? This again?” It’s Joe, grinning at him in the darkness. Nicky feels stupid with relief even as his thoughts begin to tangle in a new web of worries.

He steps back to give Joe a fuller range of motion again, and trains his eyes back on his end of the corridor so they can still cover two potential lines of attack if they need to. 

“Something’s wrong,” Nicky whispers, “where is the signal?”

“Haven’t heard anything,” Joe steps up behind him, and Nicky senses the tension in his shoulders, his own knives drawn. “I snuck past the room to listen, see if I could help.”

“And?”

“There was scuffling, some groans. Nothing I wouldn’t expect, but-” Joe pauses, and the hairs on Nicky’s neck rise. Everything feels very cold all of a sudden. “It sounded like there were more than two people in there.”

Nicky risks a glance at Joe’s face, and swallows at what he sees, “Shall we go to help them?”

“I could be wrong.” It is unclear from his tone if Joe believes this.

Nicky shakes his head and glances back down the corridor, “Do we go to help them?”

“Maybe they’re just tidying up and Hornstaff is currently lying next to the court for everyone to see.”

“But we had no signal.”

A loud bang interrupts their discussion, the sound like a wardrobe being knocked over, or a door thrown open with more force than necessary.

They don’t even need to look at each other before they’re moving. Nicky sprints down the stairs, only stopping for half a moment to check new corridors they’re entering to make sure they’re clear.

Joe is close behind him, setting a slower pace to make sure he covers their backs as they barrel on. When they step outside, Nicky throws a quick glance back at him, points up at the outer wall of the court and mouths, ‘guards?’ Joe holds up four fingers, then draws a circle in the air, and Nicky nods. There’s four of them on patrol.

They make haste as best they can. Outside, Nicky touches his hand to Joe’s sternum to make sure he stays in the sliver of invisibility the outer wall of the court provides.

When they reach the spot underneath Hornstaff’s window, there is no unconscious witchfinder lying there. Nicky glances up to where a light is clearly burning in the window.

Not the signal, then.

He cannot quell his unease anymore as it threatens to spill out of his stomach, rising in his throat like bile and filling his limbs with lead.

Joe taps his shoulder, points to the horse Andy’s hidden for them between some bushes and the back entrance of a house next to the court, but Nicky knows that Joe, too, couldn't care less about that. He looks much younger like this, in the darkness, but it’s because he’s scared. There’s nothing Nicky can do, no words he can whisper to make it go away.

Hope springs inside him, bubbles up like a well, when the window to Hornstaff’s room is thrown open. But there is no body being lowered down, no ropes.

Instead there is Hornstaff. He leans out of the window, and Nicky instinctively presses himself back against the wall, as far as he will go, holding on to Joe in the hopes he does the same.

Hornstaff breathes in, and exhales into the night with an air of contentment only large animals of predator possess.

“ _ What _ a night for it,” he says, to no one in particular, as far as Nicky can tell. Then Hornstaff looks down, his eyes roaming over the grounds before settling on a spot in the darkness far too close to where Nicky and Joe are currently standing.

There is no way he’d be able to see them. This doesn’t stop his face curling into a smile nonetheless, all teeth, no warmth.

And something inside Nicky begins to scream.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that things are quite angsty at the moment, and to offer up a little plaster of fluff, [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263706) is another fic I wrote about Joe and Nicky and proposals through the ages - no angst at all, I promise!


	9. Chapter 9

It isn’t yet noon when Andy and Quynh die for the first time.

They are strung up on the gallows just outside the city walls, and they gasp out their final breath to the intense silence of the crowd. Hornstaff didn’t lie when he said he was going to have a public trial. He’d been hoping for a showy trial, Nicky is sure, but even he couldn’t have truly known how much of a spectacle he was getting into.

Andy’s and Quynh are in simple shifts, looking ragged, their captors apparently having disposed of their clothes from the night before. Their faces are passive, distant, all through the speech he gives on their attempt on his life. He raises the vials of poison found on their bodies, as well as some dolls for the crowd to marvel at, decries them as potions and sinful objects no god-fearing woman would ever be seen with. He encourages the scorn and the rancour, the vile shouts and abhorred expressions on people’s faces until he pronounces their death by hanging.

It’s not much of a trial if the noose is already around someone’s neck, Nicky thinks. Him and Joe are watching the scene unfold from a safe distance at the edge of the crowd.

He sees Andy and Quynh exchange a single look before the stools are kicked out from under them. Nicky already knows that look will haunt him for decades, centuries, to come.

There is not much you can say to your beloved, the other part of your soul, when you’re facing death together. Nicky understands, they have all been there. There is a lot to be said for the steady reassurance of that glance. The ' _ I am here, I am here now and until the end of time,' _ that hardly needs words anymore.

Nicky counts the beats of his own heart it takes for Andy and Quynh to come back to life. He makes it to five, then they’re thrashing, convulsing, shuddering again and again, although whether into life or already back out of it he can’t tell.

_ I can’t watch this _ , Nicky thinks, but doesn’t dare take his eyes off the scene either as the first whispers start up, followed by frightened screams. Joe sneaks his hand into Nicky’s and holds on tight. His fingers hurt, his heart does too, but Nicky presses back as if it’s the only thing keeping him on this tower.

“Witchcraft! Abominations! Heretics!” Hornstaff howls down on the gallows. He has produced a wooden cross from somewhere, and uses it as a shield between him and Andy and Quynh as he continues his unholy sermon, “Not only have they tried to kill me, not only have they duped the Lord and Lady Fendrel into thinking they were upstanding, nay, noble members of society, not only have they refused to deny all this – now they also refuse to  _ die _ !

“But make no mistake - it is the devil working through them. There are no souls left in these bodies! This is not a blessed miracle, it is only a manifestation of all that is evil in this world! For their misdeeds they will  _ rot in hell _ !”

His chant is picked up by the crowd, invectives hurled into the sky, at Nicky’s friends, until he finally looks away.

The crowd in front of them looks like the sea on a stormy day: tossing and roiling with vitriolic fervour, its movement scary from afar, and infinitely worse when you’re in the middle of it. It’s hard to look at any of the people in the mob and think,  _ we were doing this for you _ .

The righteous rage is all too human, Nicky knows (maybe better than most), but at what price? He spots Myra at the far end of the crowd after a while, and he can feel himself soften. The expression on her face is unmistakable: guilt and relief that it isn’t her up there today. But it’s not free of terror, won’t be for a long time, and Nicky knows that this is far from over.

He looks over at where Joe is perched next to him. They are still holding hands in an iron grip.

Frown lines etched on his face haven’t disappeared since the night before, and all Nicky wants to do is hold him close, cradle his head and tell him to think of something else, something nice, something pretty and beautiful like one of his stories, until the frown lines disappear. He’s struck by the impossibility of that task when Joe looks back at him, dark brown eyes full to the brim with concern.

They rarely discuss this, because the thought tends to be too painful even on a nice day, but there is one rule they stick to when the four of them get separated on a mission: to give it two days.

Two days waiting at the last agreed meeting spot, that is usually enough time for those who got separated to find their way back. If more time than that passes, that’s when they start looking for each other. They are all experienced enough to know that the two days may not be… pleasant, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's doable, when you know that rescue is coming.

It’s come up recently even, when Nicky fell down a ravine while they were pursuing a horde of murdering thieves through the mountains. He hadn’t been able to claw his own way back up, even after his bones had healed successfully, and while it had been a terrible two days, he could still taste the relief on his lips when the sun came up for a second time, and he knew it would be the day the others showed up with enough rope to haul him back to safety.

Separation is not the same as capture. Even rarer when Andy is one of the captives.

When it becomes clear that Andy and Quynh are not going to meet their final end that day, Hornstaff finally agrees to put an end to the scene. Someone spits at Andy as they’re taken down from the noose, and receives a broken nose as she kicks him in the face.

“These women must be stopped. We must find a way to drive the evil out of them and purify this town. Once and for all!” Hornstaff shouts, and beckons towards the guards who are restraining the two of them, and a man who has his face covered under a black cloth, a chief executioner.

Nicky nods at Joe when he sees his questioning look, and they make their way down the tower to follow them. They see Hornstaff and his entourage disappear back into town, and realise their pursuit is going to be more difficult than initially imagined.

At night, there are shadows and corners to hide in, roofs to walk on unspotted. At night you can simply turn your face and hope that a drunkard won’t remember details. In broad daylight none of these things are possible.

Hornstaff is handed a bell by what appears to be a member of the clergy, and starts leading Andy and Quynh towards the town square, where a market is held. Ringing the bell like a man calling to prayer, the witchfinder warns the townspeople about the supposed witches in their midst by reciting their crimes for those who didn't witness their ‘trial’. He heeds caution, that there is evil among them, and that they need to watch both friends and strangers for signs of abnormal behaviour.

It would have been hard for Joe to blend in as it is, but the added obstacle of frightened merchants and shoppers casting their eyes around for the unusual, for evil in the everyday, makes it nigh impossible to slip through the cracks. Worse still, Hornstaff does not appear to be in any hurry to return Quynh and Andy to where they are to be detained, but instead lingers in the market, leading them back and forth from stall to stall until he can be sure that every townsperson (every merchant, every passing traveller) is well acquainted with their faces, and his message of distrust.

The second time a merchant nearly finds Joe and Nicky hiding in his storage cart they have no choice but to give up.

“Let’s return after nightfall,” Nicky whispers to Joe, and then they flee from the town and back to their camp. They go as fast as they can while avoiding undue attention. Andy found an abandoned monastery close by that they use for shelter. Once Andy and Quynh are free, they won’t be able to come back to this town for at least a hundred years. Not that he can imagine any of them wanting to.

Nicky is infinitely happy for the food Andy squirrelled away with their packs when they sit down to make a fire in the courtyard, although neither of them feels much like eating.

Joe gets up to feed the horse and when he comes back, he’s crying. Just standing there, in front of the fire, all the life and the chase and jitters of today suddenly evaporated to be replaced by this statue of sadness.

Nicky is up in an instant. He pulls Joe into him, cradles his head to his shoulder with one hand and winds his other arm around Joe’s waist. There is nothing he can say to make the frown lines disappear, if ever there was anything. 

So he just holds Joe close, and tries not to let his pain seep too deeply into his own bones. Kisses his tears away when Joe looks up, which makes new ones spill almost immediately.

They stand close together, holding each other, and try not to voice what they don’t want to think.

“Two days,” Joe whispers against his neck after a while. It sounds wet and mournful, and not at all like he means it. But it’s what they agreed, isn’t it?

“No.” Nicky shakes his head. They don’t know yet how Andy and Quynh might be detained. They might be back at the camp with them before the night is out. They might not. “Not this time. We rescue them, and we kill Hornstaff.”


	10. Chapter 10

In the end, exhaustion overtakes them. Joe didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep, but the second he lies down on one of the abandoned bunks in the monastery, he can feel it coming. Nicky is beside him, still cradling Joe’s head in his hands, pressing gentle kisses to his forehead from time to time, and it doesn’t take much more for Joe to drift off.

He knows they’re going to need it over the next couple of days, but he’s still regretful of the night they appear to be wasting when Nicky gently shakes him awake a few hours later.

“Did you get some sleep?” Joe asks, still rubbing at his eyes as they get ready to go back into the town.

“Some,” Nicky nods, but Joe knows that means he got a few moments of reprieve between fitful tosses and turns at best. The bags under his eyes are beginning to attest to their fraught situation.

They have a few hours until most of the town will start to awaken into the nightmare of the witchfinder’s tricks, but it will be hard to make out anything useful they don’t already know. They know where his quarters are and how they’re guarded, and that running inside to try and kill him has already proven to be a grave mistake once. They know he associates with Lord and Lady Fendrel in highly public places, surrounded by guards, and he seems to have an indiscriminate number of henchmen, including the town’s executioner, perhaps even the clergy. What they need to find out is where Andy and Quynh are kept, and how they can get the upper hand on Hornstaff so they can free them.

“You could probably take Hornstaff out with a single arrow if he sets foot on the gallows again,” Joe whispers. They’re standing below Hornstaff’s window again, on the opposite side of the street, peering up into the darkness behind the glass, “if we had a crossbow handy.”

The mission has taken a fair dent in their arsenal of weapons so far. There are too many daggers they had no chance to retrieve, and the bigger swords Joe and Nicky favour fighting with are too unwieldy, too hard to conceal, to carry with them around town.

Nicky turns to him with what Joe assumes is momentary confusion, slow blinks like he’s waiting for something to click into place.

“Of course,” he says eventually, “I should have thought of that from the start.”

Then he motions for Joe to follow him and leads him down streets and stairs into the court again, until they are standing across the street from a guarded hall near the stables.

“Lord Fendrel’s armoury,” Nicky whispers, “I got a whole tour of it two days ago. It should have everything we need.”

Joe glances at the two guards stationed at the entrance, “How do we get in?”

They could rid themselves of the guards fairly easily, Joe imagines, but it would be harder to get rid of the bodies. They cannot draw attention to themselves before they're ready since Hornstaff knows they are still free to strike.

Nicky inclines his head and motions for Joe to follow him to the left of the building, where there is a window to the armoury just under its roof. It’s high up, but it would be possible for one of them to give the other a lift up with their hands to reach.

“You could pass down a crossbow to me and then I could lay in wait,” Nicky says in a hushed tone, as if he’s just had the same thought as Joe.

“Only we don’t know if the witchfinder will be back at the gallows. Or if anyone else might pass by in the meantime, and we still need to find out where he’s keeping Andy and Quynh,” Joe reasons, and lets his head sink against the wall.

He doesn’t like what he’s about to suggest, but he thinks of Andy, and self-sacrifice and how much he loves her and Quynh and Nicky. His heart hurts with all the love he feels, and his soul aches with the realisation of what they have to do anyway. He looks at Nicky, his big eyes bright in the moonlight. “It’s probably best if you help me into the armoury, and you’ll use the day to find out about Hornstaff’s routine. The people he speaks to, the places he goes. He’ll probably even lead you to Andy and Quynh. Then we’ll know how best to attack.”

Nicky furrows his brows, “What about you?”

“I’ll draw too much attention to myself if I’m with you,” Joe says, “It’s easier for you to blend in by yourself.”

Nicky doesn’t argue with him, but he looks about as happy with this solution as Joe feels.

“I’ll get us some weapons together from places where they won’t be missed immediately,” Joe says, “and then by nightfall you come back here and all four of us flee together.”

Nicky leans in to kiss him in the cover of what is still darkness, streaked with the first grey particles of day, and Joe tries his best not to feel too desperate about, not to chase for more than he knows he can have right now. It still feels too soon when Nicky pulls away.

They both glance up at the window of the armoury, before Nicky weaves his fingers together and holds them out for Joe to step on.

“Nicky,“ Joe places his hands on Nicky’s shoulders, locking eyes with him, “if they capture and lock you away as well, then-"

“Then I will be with the two strongest warriors we know,  _ cuore mio _ ,” Nicky interrupts him, a gentle look on his face, “I’ll be fine. Although if you still feel the need to come and heroically kill some guards, I won’t stop you, of course.”

Joe smiles against his better judgement, or maybe because he has a feeling that Nicky’s joke is going to be one of the few opportunities he’ll have to smile over the next few hours. Then Nicky squats slightly, and Joe steps into his folded hands that lift him to the window. He reaches the ledge of the window with his right arm, and pulls himself up and into the armoury, careful not to make a clatter. Once he’s found his feet, he turns to give Nicky a sign that he’s all fine. His gaze is determined when he meets Joe’s eyes one last time, and Joe watches Nicky slink back into the shadows of the budding day. It’s going to be a long one.

The fact that it passes entirely uneventfully on his end feels like both a blessing and a curse. Once the sun is up, it doesn’t take him long to gather a crossbow that looks like it hasn’t been in use for a while, as well as various knives and daggers they’ll be able to easily conceal. There are many weapons that he considers taking, knowing them to be favourites of Andy and Quynh, but he knows that too much baggage will make it harder for him and Nicky to free them in the first place. Eventually, he settles on a mace, which he learned how to fight with a few lifetimes ago, and adds it to his pile for all eventualities. Then he sits underneath the window, hidden from view of the few knights who pass in and out of the armoury, and tracks the journey of the sun across the sky.

Joe is no stranger to allowing hope in when every other feeling is too heavy. He’s survived entire wars, futile missions, and the first century of being immortal on hope alone. He struggles with the waiting, the not being able to do anything while Nicky is out there, roaming the town in pursuit of Hornstaff, while Andy and Quynh are being subjected to unknowable horrors. He would like to pace, but he can't. His fingers itch for a sketchbook, but he makes do with a piece of coal he finds. He traces shapes and landscapes onto the square of sunlight as it moves across the wall next to him.

They will leave this town, he tells himself, and the sunlight will fade his drawings on this wall. One day, it will be impossible to tell that they were ever here, one day even the wall will cease to exist, and eventually crumble to dust. Even on that day, the four of them will still walk this earth. But not here, not like this, and, he hopes, without witchfinders.

At nightfall, he spots Nicky making his way over to stand underneath his window. He looks, if anything, more tired now, but there is a certain determination that hasn’t left the strong set of his brows, which Joe is happy to see. It’s always been thus: hope for him, determination for Nicky.

He waits for Nicky to give him a sign that everything is clear, then he starts lowering the weapons down, the crossbow first, then the mace. He has to pause for Nicky to strap the bow to his back, and uses the time to tie all the knives onto one rope, so they don’t clatter when they reach the ground. Once Nicky has checked the perimeter for any oncoming members of the night watch, or the armoury guards, he turns around to climb out of the window until he’s just dangling from the ledge by his fingers.

The ground isn’t far, but he still has to calibrate his fall – a broken ankle would heal quickly, no doubt, but the sound of his impact will likely alert the armoury guards, and he’ll have to flee quickly. He catches Nicky’s eyes on him, and sees the man below tap his palms against each other twice, before opening up his arms, forearms to the sky.

Joe rolls his eyes, but it is worth a try. Tensing his muscles, he pulls his legs into his body and twists as he lets go so Nicky can catch him. They both clamp their teeth over a groan when he does, and Nicky staggers a moment before letting him down.

“You alright?” Joe mouths, and accepts the additional knives Nicky hands him.

“Just my back,” Nicky whispers back, “will be gone in a second.”

“Are you suggesting I’m too heavy?”

“Maybe I’m just too old.”

They grin at each other for a moment while Joe finishes arming himself, then Nicky nods to a shadowy alley away from the guards.

“Follow me,” he murmurs, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Joe decides to take this as a positive sign, and follows Nicky through a maze of side alleys as he appears to lead them down to the harbour. He doesn’t ask what the surprise might be, but he catches on when they reach the far side of the harbour, and a squat stone building with two barred windows and a cast-iron door. There are four guards stationed in front of it, two in front of the door and one in front of each window, and Joe knows exactly who will be on the other side of that door.

“Hornstaff came here three times today,” Nicky whispers to him, “for more show trials.”

Joe pulls the corner of his mouth up in a grim smile, the nods towards the guards, “Which two do you want?”

With the crossbow it’s easy work. Nicky takes out two of the guards, safely ensconced in the shadows of the alley, the others coming to investigate before even raising an alarm. This gives Joe a chance to use his mace while Nicky is already busy patting the other guards down for keys.

“Do these two have them?” He motions for Joe to copy him when he comes up short.

“These wankers are too low-ranking to carry keys,” comes a voice from the cell.  _ Quynh _ . “Don’t think Hornstaff’s letting that one out of his hands!”

Joe and Nicky scramble to one of the windows to peer into the cell. It’s bigger than Joe thought it was going to be, and he can see both women are shackled to a stone wall, with enough slack to give them a surprising range of movement.

If Nicky looks worse for wear, though, that is still nothing compared to Andy and Quynh. Their dresses are torn, their faces caked in mud, eyes bloodshot from when Joe hopes is mainly lack of sleep. Andy looks parched, and he wonders if Hornstaff even gives them food or water.

“Do you think we can break open the door?” Joe asks.

“You can try,” Andy says, and Joe is glad to hear at least her dry wit still intact, “but I’m not holding out hope.”

They do anyway, even if it is to no avail.

Nicky is the first back at the barred window, “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve had better stays,” Andy says, rolling her shoulders in the chains while Quynh looks on. There’s a wry smile tugging at her lips, “Had worse, too, though.”

There is something remarkable about the resilience these two women have, beyond the many other remarkable traits they share. When Joe looks at them, smiling at each other like that, it’s almost like for a moment he can forget how dire things are, really.

“I’m not going to pretend these… trials are pleasant, but at least it seems to keep this guy from tormenting any of the other women in town,” Andy sighs, “so I guess it’s a worthy cross to bear.”

Quynh adds, “Even though I overheard them say they might put us on a pyre tomorrow, so we’re not really looking forward to that.”

“We’re going to get you out of there,” Nicky says, punctuating with a curt nod. There is a closed-off sort of pain flickering across his features, and Joe remembers that he will have seen the trials today.

“Honestly just make sure you kill that guy,” Quynh says, “the rest will fall into place after.”

“On it, boss.” The word slips out before Joe has any more time to think, and they all share a brief laugh. It rings through the night a flighty promise of future laughs, and Joe wishes, not for the first time, that it was a sound he could capture, like he might a sentence, or an image. 

Unfortunately, it also draws unwanted attention to them, as the now familiar look of the night watch rounds the corner.

“What’s this?” One of the men cries at the sight of the dead guards, loud enough that they know it will be pointless to fight – there will be more where these came from.

Joe and Nicky share a brief look, and then, with one last glance at Andy and Quynh in their cell (who are making shooing motions) they take off. Running down the harbour, the cries of the night watch pursuing them.  _ This is probably the hardest these guys ever had to work _ , Joe thinks, and runs a little faster. He is not going to stumble this time. A glance over his shoulder tells him that soon there is only one member of the watch left chasing after them, and soon, even that man gives up.

They don’t stop running until they are well into the forest though, and can see the monastery between the trees. Nicky’s hand closes around Joe’s like it did the day before when they stood at the edge of the crowd, hard but supportive, and they halt to catch their breath.

“So then,” Joe pants, when they continue walking to camp, “tell me what else you could find out about Hornstaff’s day.”

And so Nicky does: he recounts his show trials, the sermons about public distrust he continues to hold at almost every street corner; how he rarely appears to be alone, surrounded by his henchmen even in his quarters, which is how Nicky imagines they got the jump on Andy and Quynh; his meetings with the local clergy, and the Lord and Lady Fendrel for meal times: the gruesome instructions he gives the executioner.

Joe listens all the way back to their camp and begins to rekindle the fire as Nicky finishes recounting the last of what he’d learned.

The bags under his eyes are deep and dark, exacerbated by the light of the fire dancing over his features, he looks worn to the bone. Joe retrieves food for them from one of the bags, then pulls Nicky close to him, lets him rest against his front as they sit and stare at the fire. He hooks his chin over Nicky’s shoulder, his arms tight around him as Nicky eats, passing the odd bite over to Joe.

“Do you think we’re ever going to be like Andy and Quynh?” Nicky asks once they’re done, the fire reflecting in his eyes.

Joe chuckles to himself, “It’s not a competition,  _ rohi _ ,” he murmurs into Nicky’s shoulder, plants a kiss there. He knows exactly what Nicky means, though. They’ve been together for centuries, longer than any other human can dream to live, let alone love, and he often believes that means they’ve had to find a meaning for the word  _ love  _ that was all their own. Andy and Quynh… Even with his extensive experience of living and loving, he cannot even fathom to understand what millennia alone, then millennia together must feel like. Nicky and him may have found a way to define the word love for them anew, but Andy and Quynh have long surpassed this stage. Their bond is more than words, deeper than their bodies, even their souls.

They lie down to sleep and Nicky tugs Joe’s arms close around him even as the warmth of the fire works its caresses over them both. He links their fingers together, presses a kiss to Joe’s palm, and Joe sighs as he closes his eyes.

“I think I know how we’ll get out of this,” he whispers. But he's asleep before he even hears Nicky's pleasant rumble of assent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearly there, guys. Thank you for bearing with me for so long!


	11. Chapter 11

The sun rises red over the sea the next morning when they wake, hearts heavy, eyes bleary, but their minds set.

“Before we kill any witchfinder, we need a disguise,” Joe says, and so they find old tunics in the monastery’s dusty linen room, complete with cowls to hide their faces. Nicky takes out one of the knives and makes a clean cut into his and Joe’s robe at hip level. It will look like a pocket, if it is noticed by other people at all, but give both of them access to their weapons when they need it.

“You said you had a plan?” Nicky asks once satisfied with his work, and they set out for town like two travelling monks.

“Whenever Hornstaff comes to take Andy and Quynh away for his ‘trials’, he also has to be the one to bring them back, because he’s the only one with the key, right?”

Nicky nods, going over his memories from the day before. It’s true, whenever Andy and Quynh were dragged out of their cell, Hornstaff was with them, even up to the point of making sure they were chained back into place properly.

“So I say we lie in wait close to the cell, wait until they’re taking them out. Do the guards stay in front of the cell whenever they’re taken out?”

“No, they usually go with, to watch,” Nicky says. He remembers standing at the entrance of the cell, peering in, and wondering what he could change, if anything, to help his friends.

“Good. So we hide there, wait for them to come back and let them lock us inside there with them. If we can, we’ll get Andy’s and Quynh’s shackles off, but even if not, we’ll wait for Hornstaff to come back a final time, and then we’ll get the jump on him, kill him and the guards, free Andy and Quynh and then we can flee.”

Nicky considered this for a moment. “What if we don’t succeed and they lock us in there with Andy and Quynh?”

“How many guards are there?”

“If they’ve stationed four outside the cell again, I guess there would be six in total together with the executioners. Plus Hornstaff, so seven people to fight.”

Joe looks pensive. The town gate is coming up at the end of the way, and they need to make a decision on their plan. “We’ve bested more, in the past.”

“That we have. But for some reason,” Nicky responds, and he can’t help his frown coming back, “we’ve really struggled these past few days.”

“That’s true enough,” Joe admits, “but this time, we’ll have the element of surprise on our side. And Andy and Quynh may be in chains, but you know they’ll be able to inflict a fair bit of damage once we’re fighting.”

Nicky stops briefly to consider this, and waits for Joe to stop walking and turn around to look at him. He is smiling, quietly confident, and lifts his cowl so Nicky can see his eyes as well. The truth is this: Nicky would know if Joe was grasping at straws, suggesting something out of desperation or because he thinks it is a plan of action least likely to harm Nicky. But there is only quiet confidence on his face, and when it comes down to it, that’s all Nicky’s ever needed to follow Joe into battle, to the end of the world, anywhere.

“Alright,” he says, and walks to catch up with Joe, trying to ease his frown. Not that it will matter much, their faces are hidden well, and they enter the town as two travelling brothers of a holy order. Which is  _ one _ possible interpretation of who they are, Nicky muses. But not his favourite by a long shot.

They take the streets down to the harbour, which is the most straightforward way to get to Andy and Quynh’s cell. It also has the added benefit of mainly passing travellers and merchants, who are unlikely to recognise or otherwise take notice of them. Only the closer they get to the harbour, the more people are milling about on the streets, all seemingly sharing their intent. Soon, it is almost impossible to tread anywhere without bumping into people’s shoulders, and Joe touches Nicky’s elbow to halt him when he is about to slip into the throng of people. He shakes his head, barely noticeable under his hood, but Nicky understands. They might get separated, and that’s not a risk worth taking today.

They turn around, away from the harbour, and use the back alleys to make their way across town instead. Something  _ big _ must be happening at the harbour this morning, and Nicky keeps sneaking glances at Joe to see if he can offer himself some sort of explanation. He catches only glimpses of his lover’s face, but from what he can see, Joe is as confused as he is. Was there a big market or harbour festival they didn’t know was going to happen? Nicky wracks his brain trying to remember whether Lord or Lady Fendrel may have mentioned such a thing in passing while testing his patience with their bigoted tales, but comes short of a memory.

It takes a little longer to reach the cell on this route, but when they steer back to the harbour, they can see that the throngs of people are there to watch a big, dark vessel set sail. It is already halfway out of the harbour when they get there, but people are still shouting after it.

Nicky sighs. It is a fairly common thing to do, particularly for people who’ve never been to sea before, to wave after loved ones going a bigger trip, or wishing well to merchants selling wares they have a big stake in. He can’t help a prickling of annoyance at the sight though.

It is much harder for them to find a hidden spot to lay low in while this many people are roaming the streets, and the sun is well past its peak when the crowds have finally dispersed. They manage to find cover in a street somewhat across from the cell, where half the houses look a little derelict and unlived in, and they know they won’t be bothered by anyone walking past.

Nicky leans against a wall, the cast iron door of the cell in his sights, his hand resting on his crossbow.

“Have you seen Hornstaff going back into their cell yet?” Joe asks, barely turning his face to look at him.

“No.” Nicky shakes his head, the smallest of movements, his eyes not once leaving the door. “Has to be any moment now.” And when he does, they’ll be ready.

One of the new guards stationed underneath the barred windows does not look like he is particularly cut out for the job. He is impatient, unable to stand still for a long time, and clearly perturbed by whatever it is he’s hearing from inside the cell, leaning over to shout inside from time to time.

Nicky and Joe are too far away and the sound of the sea too loud to make out what he is saying, but Nicky hopes, whatever it is, that Andy and Quynh are giving him hell for it. It’s a miracle he still appears to be talking back at them.

He watches the ongoing exchange for a while with growing unease, trying to ignore the fact that Hornstaff still hasn’t shown. Next to him, he can tell Joe is scanning their surroundings for the witchfinder as well as other potential attackers. Their disguise is good, but they have underestimated their opponent one time too many already.

The sun continues to travel over the sky, marred by clouds, and he still does not come.

“He’s either very late,” Nicky says, “or he’s skipped a visit.”

Joe casts another glance around them. “Change of plan?”

Nicky nods. “Maybe we should split up.”

“Yes. I’ll hide in that stall on the other side of the cell over there as soon as they finish selling laverbread for the day.” Joe jerks his chin toward a lone market stall that sells food for passing sailors and merchants. “And then when he shows up, we don’t wait for him to take them and come back, it’s getting too late for any show trials.”

“Maybe he’s decided not to compete with the excitement of the ship this morning,” Nicky muses.

Joe makes a clicking noise in the back of his throat, agreeing with Nicky. “Perhaps. Let’s just take him out when he gets here.”

They keep watch on the cell until the man selling his laverbread packs up his stall. Nicky feels Joe’s gaze drift over the side of his face, so he nods, curtly, and squeezes his hand. Then Joe makes his way around the back of the cell, undetected by the guards, and falls in line with the remaining visitors to the harbour before turning to duck into the little stall. An invisible movement for the guards, but not for Nicky.

In the meantime, the impatient new guard at the window seems to have calmed down and doesn’t turn to shout inside anymore. Nicky finds it hard to believe that he should have learned constraint in such a short time, or managed to steel his nerves, and so he assumes that Andy and Quynh have fallen silent. It wouldn’t surprise him, Nicky’s seen them have entire conversations, even arguments, without ever uttering a word, but now it bothers him for some reason.

A lot of things bother him: The witchfinder not turning up, the insolent face on that guard, that they had to change the plan, that Joe isn’t next to him anymore, that it is so quiet all of a sudden, the sound of the endless lapping of the sea against the harbour his only companion.

It is dusk when Hornstaff finally strides across the harbourside, with what appears to be almost a spring in his step, the leg he drags behind him half-forgotten. The scream inside Nicky is back, but it is not the high-pitched terror he felt when he saw Hornstaff lean out his window. It is the scream of an angry animal that’s been caged for too long and ready to lash out even at the hand that feeds it. He can barely make out Joe in the sparse light of the early evening, but when Hornstaff passes the stall he’s hiding in and unlocks the gate to the cell, Nicky thinks he can see a nod.

He doesn’t waste another breath before he pulls the crossbow from his robe and takes out the insolent guard, then reloads and shoots the other one next to the cast-iron door. The other guard turns, distracted and alarmed, which was all the preamble Joe needed to jump out at him and cut his throat, while Nicky runs closer, reloads, and shoots the fourth guard. The first stars have started to appear and Nicky pauses to thank them that his hand is still steady, because his heart is hammering at the sound coming from the cell.

It is Andy, screaming incoherently at the sight of Hornstaff so he cannot hear a single thing Hornstaff is saying. Joe and him meet at the door and pull their cowls down to share a concerned look, before Nicky reloads his crossbow and steps into the cell.

“NO!” Andy is throwing herself against her shackles like an unbroken horse, her eyes something white and wild, like she’ll begin foaming at the mouth, while she screams at Hornstaff. Then a trickle of pure ice slips down Nicky’s spine. He noticed something was out of place when he came in, but once his thoughts catch up with what Andy is shouting, he freezes in place.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE WITHOUT HER! TAKE ME WITH HER!” Andy screams, demands, begs Hornstaff, and Nicky feels sick to his stomach, a feeling straight past dread settling inside him. 

_ Where is Quynh? _

It’s Joe who sweeps past him into the cell, and makes Hornstaff’s bad leg crumble with one swift kick. Hornstaff buckles, falls to his knees, but doesn’t get a chance to call for guards before Joe has a knife to his throat, holding his head in place with a sharp tug on his wispy hair.

“Where have you taken her?” he demands. “Where have you taken Quynh?”

Nicky uses the moment to rush to Andy who is still sobbing in anguish unlike any time Nicky’s ever seen before, and it scares him more than any of the awful people they ever had to go up against, any of the violence he’s witnessed. He doesn’t understand what’s happened, and he doesn’t even begin to know how he can be there for his friend right now. How they can fix this. 

Hornstaff’s face is twisted into a snarl from where he glares up at Joe. “You will never find her again. I told you creatures such as you must rot in hell.” Too late any of them see the knife that he pulls out of his belt and sinks into Joe’s knee. Nicky winces at Joe’s hiss of pain, but he knows it’ll be alright.

“Come on,” he says to Andy and wishes he’d be able to say or even think the same thing about her. “We need to get you out of these chains.”

“No,” Andy says, and he recoils at how defeated she sounds, “Just leave me here.”

Nicky shakes his head and begins to wrangle with her for the shackles, panic setting in. How long do they have before anyone outside sees the dead guards and comes to have a look inside?

From the corner of his eye, he sees Joe lose his patience with Hornstaff after he refuses to tell him where they’ve taken Quynh beyond a cryptic: “The closest to hell we could get her; the bottom of the sea.” It’s when Joe finally pulls Hornstaff’s head back, hard, and cuts his throat in one clean motion. 

“Guess who’s getting closer,” he spits out, but there are tears springing from his eyes, and his voice is laden with emotion that Nicky hasn’t even been able to process yet.

“Joe, can you check him for keys, please? We need to get Andy out of these somehow.”

There is movement outside, and Nicky is still wrangling with an uncooperative Andy, who shows no emotion at all at his presence, at Hornstaff’s death. Nicky isn’t even sure if she recognises who he is.

“Only this one,” Joe holds up a large key that he found dangling from the witchfinder’s belt. “I think that’s for the door.” Nicky pinches the bridge of his nose. They  _ need _ to get Andy out of here before anyone storms in and makes all of this even worse, although it’s hard to imagine how that’s going to be possible.

“Andy,” he sighs, “I’m so sorry about this.” He tries to make eye contact with her, make her understand that it pains him to hurt her when she is already hurting like this, but she barely seems to see him.

“I want to stay in here,” she says, “There’s no point getting away if- AH!”

She grunts when Nicky breaks her hand to use the moment before it knits back together to shove it through her shackles.

“I’m so sorry about this, boss, just one more.”

Joe comes to help him and they carry Andy out of the cell, her head lolling between their shoulders like she is nothing but a children’s toy. At the sight of the sea she suddenly becomes animated again, straining against both their bodies, trying to tear away from where they’re supporting her hands over their shoulders.

“You’re not going to throw yourself in the water now,” Joe says, trying to keep his voice steady, his thumb stroking over the back of her hand. 

There is no one there to see them outright, but they need to find a better way to flee if Andy is not going to run. She howls like a wounded animal, and Nicky supposes that in a way she is. It still shakes him to his very core to see this woman, the embodiment of strength and resilience if ever he’s known one, in pieces like this. Although the worst thing maybe, is how viscerally he feels her pain. For Quynh, for who they are, for the loss she’s suffered.

“Let’s find a barge,” he says, and steers them down to where the ships are towed.

They need to be strong for her now when she can’t. It is what she would do if their roles were reversed, although Nicky thinks he might actually throw up at the thought of it. All lovers are different when together, but in the end, all lovers mourn each other the same.

Nicky spots a small rowing boat between some of the bigger merchant ships in the harbour and motions for Joe to walk into that direction with him.

They heave Andy into the barge, and Nicky sits down next to her, his hand not leaving her back, the other encircling her wrist.

She still looks like she might make a dash for it, pull herself free and throw herself into the waves when Joe cuts them loose, sits opposite them and begins rowing them out of the harbour. They haven’t discussed it, but they don’t have to. They will look for Quynh.

Andy draws in a rattling breath that sounds like it might be trying to fill not just her lungs but her entire body, so frail under Nicky’s hands all of a sudden. She’s a picture painted in grief against the night sky and the sea.

“’You’re a better immortal than I am,’ that’s what she always used to say.” Andy’s face is one hard line. “’I had already given up when you found me, because I couldn’t stand to be alone.’”

Andy doesn’t need to continue this story, both Joe and Nicky know how it goes, have had the same conversation with Andy and Quynh over and over. Quynh’s headstrong belief that Andy’s was the strongest of them because she survived alone for so long, longer than Joe and Nicky have even existed. That if any of them would be fine to live on if all the others died, it would be Andy, too.

Nicky slings his arm around Andy’s shoulder and keeps holding on even when she doesn’t relax into it, her body a hard and rigid line, stoic against the stormy sea.

“We’ll find her, Andy,” he whispers, the sound drowning in the wind.

His eyes catch on Joe’s. It’s like the pain Andy doesn’t want to show is magnified thousand-fold on his face, already etched deep in the lines on his forehead and around his eyes, which are shimmering with tears still.

“We have to.” They can become mortal again, one day, when their wounds will stop healing. They might even age, their skin sagging where it wouldn't previously, their minds losing the agility they've kept for centuries. 

But until then, there is still an eternity they need to face together. No matter what Quynh thinks - none of them can live it alone.

**Author's Note:**

> So there we are. Thank you for sticking with this story, while I got more angst out of my system than I realised I had to, and I hope that the ride has at least been a little bit enjoyable.
> 
> I'm not sure I'd have made it through without my wonderful, wonderful beta, [@Avanie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanie/pseuds/Avanie), who has suffered more than I intended from both angst and historical inaccuracies.
> 
> But she's also demanded Andy/Quynh fluff to make up for this, so it's the least I can do to comply.


End file.
